Critically Endangered
Around the World in 80 Days - Day 66
Our journey with Phileas Fogg has made it to Medicine Bow, Wyoming. These snails are not from Wyoming though. I was intending to paint the Fat-Whorled Pondsnail partly just because of the name. I spent most of the day searching for information on in, but could not find any written description, photo, or scientific drawing. I couldn't even find any pictures of empty shells. One site I found mentioned that it could have been the same as the Thickshell Pondsnail, I guess just re-named. So, I decided to look into this snail. At first all I found was 3 black and white drawings of their shells. There was a written description, but it did not include the inhabitant of the shell in the description. Eventually I did find some photographs of empty shells, which is why I chose this blue-grey. It seemed most were cream or brown, but there were a few pretty blue-grey. Unfortunately, while I've painted the body similarly to others in the genus Stagnicola, I do not have any idea if this is what the snail looked like. The shell is right at least. They have not been seen since the 1930's. Though they are listed as critically endangered, they are likely extinct. A drought ruined the water in the lake back in the '30's and the last site they may be at is considered to be fairly uninhabitable.
I cannot imagine that you find it fascinating how long I'm managing to make the cream and black pencils last. I am really enjoying it though, it does not take much to make me happy. I thought yesterday was going to be the end of both of them, but I think with my needle nose pliers I may be able to sharpen them both one last time. This is the two of them, and a pencil I have barely used. I've also included my three most commonly used brushes. In fact, I need to get another of the bottom of the three brushes because it is becoming rather worn. I will sometimes use a bigger brush to do the backgrounds, but because the paintings are so small, the brushes need to be small as well. The long pencil is blue-grey, which I used a good bit of in the shell today. It, combined with a pale blue and Payne's grey made for a good jeans blue sort of colour. I chose to do the blue shell because my mom loves blue and I knew she would appreciate it. My mom is my first and favourite art teacher. Her style is very different from mine. Even when we are doing the same medium our art is nothing alike. She doesn't do digital or photography, and though she's done pottery in the past she doesn't any longer. She is the one who took the class that I went to with the woman who had a seeing eye dog I got to borrow. I mentioned that in another blog post long ago. She has mostly been doing oil paintings, but she also loves to do printmaking, something I hate doing.
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