"One in a million bones become fossilized," I was told at La Brea, "none of the animal species represented here are from one animal. The bones are found in the tar, organized by animal species, then the bones of several animals are pieced together to make one animal. When you see a body, it is made up of about 20 animals put together. It is extremely rare that you will ever find a body completely intact." Sabor tooth cats were about 450 pounds; about the size of the African lion. They were a very stocky cat; pouncers more than chasers and the last of these cats died out 10,000 years ago.

Back to La Brea for a two hour sketch exercise. Was given some names of renown researchers and will contact them in the future. The next steps will be to do some anatomical sculpts, but have large overlappping freelance right now. Will try to post new art when I can. thanks for checking in!

Going from horses to the big Cats. Fun excercises I did in the Bay Area. I decided that I needed to start practising painting big cats for LeoPardine. Small brushworks. These are not finished yet and will probably go to the gallery.

This is a quick fun little acrylic sketch I did while in the Bay Area. Colors: black, white, burnt umber, naples yellow with cerealun blue in the background. tiny, maybe 2x2.

This is a sculpture of a sabortooth cat battling with a snake in Golden Gate Park. It has always been a favorite of mine, as I used to visit there a lot when I was a kid. I wonder if the same sculptor did the sabortooth cats in La Brea..

I walked around the sculpture which is in a dried out fountain between the new De Young Museum and the Steinhart Aquarium (which is empty because of remodeling). I drew different views of it because from almost every angle it is a beautiful and dynamic composition. Evenutally it got so cold, my hands started to ache, but it deserves another visit to do some acrylic studies. I tried acrylic, but it was so cold, it would not dry! And thus came out like mud!