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Painting Whales Again I'm very pleased to post this painting for our new charity, the Marine Mammal Care Center (http://www.mar3ine.org/aboutmmcc.htm). This piece brings me full circle to my beginnings as a professional artist. 30 years ago, I sold my first piece of art work for charity. I was a docent at a GreenPeace art auction in San Francisco. I didn't have anything in the auction. As a beginning artist, I didn't feel confident to put a piece in the auction. To bide my time, I brought my sketch book. I was just finishing up a sketch of a steno dolphin, when the gallery owner offered to purchase it from me for the auction. He bought it for $75.00. This started me off to donating more of my work to GreenPeace and other causes. At Greenpeace, I was fortunate to observe and learn from some of the greats in Marine Mammal art. Lou Silva, Larry Foster, Daniel Burgevin, George Sumner and Richard Ellis were all very helpful and shared so much of their knowledge and expertise. Those were very exciting times in the field of whale art. Prior to then, much of the depictions of whales were taken from dead whales either washed ashore or from the whaling ships. As new photos of live whales became available, our paintings changed. I remember in one instance, the revelation that a blue whale's lower jaw was not underslung. They actually have a bit of an overbite. It's nice to know that once again my skill can help......Robin Joy Andreae
Posted by ArtHelpingAnimals at 12:16 PM