From the category archives:

Operations

Lions!

by J.R. Atkins on August 19, 2009

in Carnivores, Operations

Did you notice the Daily Mammal has been on a sort of sabbatical? That was for very good reason: my family has expanded! And in honor of that, today we have not one but THREE lion drawings—by me, my son V (age 13), and my daughter C (age 10). Can you believe V has never drawn with this particular technique? And C’s baby lion is adorable, isn’t it? (Click each drawing to see it larger, please!)

My lion

My lion


V's lion

V's lion

C's lion

C's lion

The Daily Mammal will be back to normal (or some semblance thereof) soon. Perhaps with some new mammalogists!

{ 6 comments }

Welcome to the new site!

by J.R. Atkins on April 17, 2009

in Operations

slothsketchI’m glad you found the Daily Mammal’s new location. If you’re new here, welcome, and if you’re an old hand, I hope you’ll enjoy exploring the new site. I’ve added some features like categories and tags (look in the right-hand sidebar), the search function is easier to find, and I’ll be creating new Daily Mammal downloads (like desktop wallpapers and printable notecards) in the coming weeks, which you can access from the Downloads link up at the top of the page. (There’s nothing new there right now, though.)

0001

One of my favorite new touches is the way all the mammals are now numbered. Look for the pink badges like the one just to the right of this paragraph to keep track as we slowly but surely count up to 5,000 species. (Unfortunately, if you read this blog via RSS, you will see the numbers but not the pretty pink borders.)

Another new thing is how comments will work. On the old site, I had to approve or reject every comment, and you had to register. Now only your first comment has to be approved. After that you’ll be trusted to comment however you want. (The reason I choose to moderate comments is that when I first started the site, I was barraged with a series of abusive comments from one person, who maintained that I was exploiting animals for my own professional gain. I welcome any comments that aren’t abusive or spam, though!)

Please let me know if you see anything weird or wrong that I need to fix. Thank you!

JR

{ 6 comments }

Something I’ve Noticed About Myself

by J.R. Atkins on February 24, 2009

in Operations

When I do a drawing that I really don’t like, it sort of freezes me. I don’t want to post it, but it’s a mammal, so shouldn’t I? I mean, it’s one out of 5,000, mark it down. But I don’t like the drawing, so I put it off and put it off. And meanwhile, I’m staring at it as it sits on the edge of my table, waiting for me to scan it, and I think its very presence makes me not even want to draw. It’s this thing that I have to deal with. Do you understand?

Last week, I drew a beaver that I really don’t like. So it’s sitting here on the corner of my table. I was going to post about monogamy among beavers for Valentine’s Day—that’s how long it’s been sitting here. I think I’ll just skip it for now and go on with the next one and either redraw the beaver if I have time or just suck it up and post it if I have no other choice.

{ 6 comments }

Where’d the mammals go?

by J.R. Atkins on November 19, 2008

in Operations

Hello, mammals! Just a note to let you know that the Daily Mammal is not gone for good! After the European vacation mentioned in the last post, I was out of the drawing habit…then I left my job to go freelance and had some work keeping me busy…and now I’m working on a redesign of the site. I’m not going to be on Blogger anymore at some point, so if you’re reading this, you might take a moment to update your link to www.dailymammal.com if you’re using the blogspot one instead. I have been drawing mammals, and will be back soon. Thanks for your patience! If you’d like me to let you know when there’s a new mammal up, please e-mail me at jr(at)dailymammal(dot)com.

{ 3 comments }

Happy birthday, Daily Mammal!

by J.R. Atkins on June 4, 2008

in Operations

Today, June 3, is the Daily Mammal’s first birthday! A few weeks ago, I posted a couple of goals I wanted to meet by today. And guess what! I met them! You wouldn’t know, though, because I have six drawings of mammals in six orders that have never previously been seen on this site, but I haven’t scanned and posted them yet. I hope I can start posting them this week.

So to recap, in the first year of the Daily Mammal, while I did not draw 366 mammals as would have been ideal, I did draw half a year’s worth, coming in at about 185 species (plus a few repeated species due to mammalthon requests). And I managed to draw at least one species in every order of mammal, and since there are a few orders that contain only one species, they’re officially retired—cross ‘em off the list!

Speaking of lists, I’m going to start periodically making available an updated spreadsheet of all the mammal species that shows which I’ve already drawn. You can download the spreadsheet, which is in Excel format, by clicking here.

Thanks for supporting the Daily Mammal for the past year, and let’s have another great year starting now! Only thirteen years to go…

Tagged as: about drawing

{ 7 comments }

Assorted mammalian musings

by J.R. Atkins on May 8, 2008

in Operations

• On June 3, 2007, the first Daily Mammal post went up. Almost a year ago!

• I was up until 3:30 am last night working on a spreadsheet that lists the Latin names and taxonomic situations of all the mammals of the world. (Don’t worry, I didn’t make that part, I downloaded it from the Smithsonian.) What I was doing was putting in the common names and the dates posted for the mammals I’ve drawn. I got them all in except for this latest mammalthon batch, and while I do feel a sense of satisfaction for having done that, I am very disappointed that I have drawn nowhere near the 366 mammals I should have. Luckily, my 14-year estimate was based on a rounding up of 13 and a half years, so I don’t need to change that prediction yet. But I have to get on the ball!

• My first goal for the few weeks left in this first fiscal mammal year is to hit half of the 366 mammals that we needed.

• My second goal is to draw at least one species from every order of mammals by June 3. Orders are the groups like rodents, primates, ungulates, carnivores, etc. There are 10 orders we haven’t covered, so unless one of them is extremely mysterious and no reference images can be found, that should be no problem. One of the remaining orders is represented by just one species!

• My goal for next year is to draw 365 mammals between June 3, 2008, and June 3, 2009. I think that hard as it is, it’s still worthwhile to try to draw one a day. I know there will be times—business trips, for instance—when it’s just not possible, but I can do mammalthons to make up for those times, maybe. Here is a quote from Andy Warhol (via Gretchen Rubin’s Happiness Project, one of my favorite blogs) that addresses this:

“Actually, I jade very quickly. Once is usually enough. Either once only, or every day. If you do something once it’s exciting, and if you do it every day it’s exciting. But if you do it, say, twice or just almost every day, it’s not good any more.”

• In creating this spreadsheet, I got to go back and look at all my old drawings. My drawing has improved so much in just a year! (Imagine how good I’d get if I actually did draw every day.) I think right now I’ve plateaued, but maybe I’ll start an upward swing again soon. Here’s something funny I noticed. I’ve drawn three different kangaroo rats over the past year, and each time I didn’t think about the other ones I’d drawn. But look at the drawings. Every one is in the same position! And what’s up with the style of that second one (from Mammalthon 1)? Here they are; which is your favorite?:




Tagged as: about drawing, taxonomy

{ 8 comments }

Mammalthon 2 A Success!

by J.R. Atkins on May 4, 2008

in Mammalthons, Operations

This is Ted, guest-blogging for Jennifer.

At 6:20 this morning, Jennifer had to lie down for a little while, and asked me to wake her at 7:00. I did, but she quickly fell back asleep again. I’ve decided to let her sleep.

Last time she did the Mammalthon, you may recall I wrote how she made it look easy, staying up all night and drawing without a break. This time, it didn’t look easy.

Jennifer got back from a busy business conference on Thursday, and never really rested up from that before undertaking the Mammalthon. She worked her heart out, and repeatedly said she didn’t want to disappoint anyone.

Jennifer managed to raise over $1000 for The Wildlife Center, more money than she’d raised in the first Mammalthon for Defenders of Wildlife. She took on a very difficult challenge in order to raise that money, to entertain and to create some wonderful drawings for all of us to enjoy. And she managed to draw 15 of those drawings in 18 hours. Not bad, huh? Anyone out there feel disappointed?

Jennifer didn’t want to let down anyone who made a donation for a drawing that she may not be able to draw today. If any of you do feel cheated, we’ll be happy to refund your donation. But I don’t expect anyone will. Jennifer will get to all of your drawings as soon as she can, and we’ll get out the ones she did complete in the next week.

The task may have been to draw 24 mammals in 24 hours, but that wasn’t the point of the project. The point was to have fun, bring a little drama and excitement to your weekend, raise money for a worthy cause and celebrate our love for animals.

I hope you’ll join with me in telling Jennifer how proud we are of her work, of her spirit and of her heart. She brings a little beauty into our lives with every drawing, just for the love of doing it. I’m very proud of her.

And I’m happy to declare Mammalthon 2 a big success!

{ 13 comments }

← Previous Entries