TTC

Dog travois sketch & photo: FFA & TTC

/ SoyBend / 8 Comments

Here is a dog travois sketch I drew based on a display at the Plains Indian wing of the Buffalo Bill Center of the West in Wyoming.

Before the introduction of horses in North America, people relied on dogs to pull loads up to 75 pounds in weight. After the use of horses became commonplace, dogs continued to carry lighter loads.

This quick sketch was done for the Inktober challenge in 2024. The prompt for that day was “nomadic.”

dog travois sketch

This beautiful display at the Buffalo Bill Center shows a woman walking beside a dog travois. A man on horseback leads the way. Native people have relied on dogs as guardians, hunters, and companions for hundreds of years.

Plains Indian on the move

I’ve used saddlebags on my dogs in the past, but travois carry much heavier loads. Here’s a historical photo of dogs pulling travois in Alaska in 1897.

Two Klondikers with dogs packing supplies along the Chilkoot Trail near Dyea, Alaska, 1897. Frank La Roche, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Do you have artwork you would like to share? Be sure to include the First Friday Art tag.

First Friday Art (FFA)

Three Things Challenge (TTC) – people

Bend Branches always appreciates your comments and likes. Comments may not appear right away since they’re screened for spam prior to posting. Thanks!

Exquisite Creatures Revealed: LAPC & TTC

/ SoyBend / 24 Comments

Exquisite Creatures Revealed is an amazing exhibition at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI) in Portland, Oregon. It will be on display until February 17, 2025.

Christopher Marley combined elements of art and the natural world into three-dimensional masterpieces. Marley has lived in dozens of countries and studied art and design, while pursuing a career in fashion. The time he spent working for Luis Vuitton, Georgio Armani, Gucci, Donna Karan, and Nike influenced his overall aesthetics.

These displays were created using mainly one color, complementary colors, analogous colors, and black and white. The unique works of art highlight the wide range of colors and forms occurring in nature.

Butterfly & Beetle Exquisite Creatures

The butterfly pieces were wonderfully colorful, but also beautiful because of their iridescence. The various species of Lepidoptera shown live in France, China, Indonesia, Laos, Peru, Brazil, Guyana, Bolivia, Central African Republic, Japan, Thailand, and Malaysia.

exquisite creatures

exquisite creatures

butterfly art

butterfly and moth art

exquisite creatures

These Jewel Beetles are all the same species, just different in color. The wide variety of colors, and their shiny texture, made for an eye-catching display. They live in Southeast Asia.

jewel beetles

Dragonflies and katydids

These remarkable creatures are considered one of the most efficient hunters in the animal kingdom. The dragonfly species in this piece live in regions of the U.S. and Asia.

There are over 20,000 species of leaf mimic katydids in the world. The insects shown live in Peru, Indonesia, Malayasia, Thailand, and Papua New Guinea.

exquisite creatures

Crab Exquisite Creatures

This triptych shows the significant differences in crab’s body shape and size. Did you know there are over 7,000 species of crab in the world?

Crab art

crab display

crab art

Sea urchin and sand dollar Exquisite Creatures

I think these were some of my favorite pieces in this exhibit. The sea urchins in these pieces reside in oceans around the world.

sea urchin art

This triptych piece had a nice movement to it. I liked its curving lines, the variety of its colorful sea urchins, and the simple shapes of the white sand dollars in the background.

exquisite creatures

I liked the next piece because it reminded me of the excitement I’ve experienced upon finding a complete sand dollar while walking along Pacific Northwest beaches. If you shake them, you’ll hear a rattling sound. The small V-shaped pieces found inside dead sand dollars are called doves. In life, they function as teeth.

sand dollars

Seahorses and brittle stars

These seahorse skeletons looked so delicate. These seahorses lived in Hawaii.

seahorses

This piece, composed of Brittle Stars, also looked fragile. This species lives in the Philippines.

exquisite creatures brittle stars

Snakes

This piece includes three Royal Pythons that lived in Sub-Saharan Africa. This piece was interesting, but I also found it to be kind of disturbing.

Feathers and birds

This piece showed the diversity of colors and forms of feathers.

feather art

These Rosella skins show the wide range of color in their feathers. This species is native to Australia.

exquisite creatures rosella skins

Orchids

Christopher Marley briefly described why he included this orchid piece in the exhibition. He was impressed by the flowers’ “bizarre, extravagant, even superfluous morphology, and the colors unbound by any parameters give them a ruggedly individual, almost defiant air that I find both intoxicating and humbling.”

orchid art

In case you were wondering, all of the artwork includes real preserved specimens. The specimens were collected using ecologically friendly and sustainable methods in collaboration with zoos, museums, and collectors. None of the vertebrates featured in this exhibition were killed for the art pieces.

The Exquisite Creatures Revealed exhibition was unlike any I’ve ever seen. It was definitely one of my favorite exhibits I saw last year. Yeah, the specimens themselves are fascinating, but the way Marley displayed them was awe-inspiring. WOW!

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge (LAPC) – Complementary Colors

Three Things Challenge TTC)- Yeah, Year

Bend Branches always appreciates your comments and likes. Comments may not appear right away since they’re screened for spam prior to posting. Thanks!

The Blacksmith restaurant: Foodie Friday & TTC

/ SoyBend / 4 Comments

We had a burger dish and a pasta dish recently at The Blacksmith restaurant in Bend. We made sure to leave room for one of their special desserts.

This is a picture of the Blacksmith Burger. The dish includes a 1/2-pound Kobe patty on a brioche bun, topped with tomato, lettuce, red onions, and aioli. You can choose to have the burger with either fries or a side salad. The fries and burger were delicious!

The Blacksmith restaurant

This picture shows the Shrimp Linguine dish. It includes shrimp, cherry tomato, basil, mint, red onion, and garlic. White wine lemon cream sauce, parmesan, and fresh herbs top the linguini pasta. This dish was full of flavor.

Shrimp linguini

The Blacksmith restaurant desserts

The Blacksmith is well known locally for their desserts.

This photo shows their Fostered Bananas Split. This twist on a traditional banana split includes house-made banana bread, vanilla bean ice cream, and sauteed bananas, topped with orange rum caramel sauce and whipped cream. This was a good dessert, but my banana bread was a little dry.

The Blacksmith restaurant

This is a picture of their Brownie dessert. The dish includes a rich brownie sprinkled with sea salt, topped with vanilla bean ice cream, caramel, and toasted walnuts. This was a very tasty dessert, nicely presented.

brownie dessert

I’m including a copy of their dessert menu. Yes, they are expensive! The banana split price, in particular, is too high, in my opinion.

You can find the dinner, happy hour, and drink menus on their website.

I enjoyed the food and atmosphere at The Blacksmith restaurant. This building, built in 1923, once housed Pete Pierson Blacksmithing. The owners since then have tried to keep much of the original structure. The building opened as a restaurant in 2003 and its current owners have owned it since 2013.

One of the things I appreciated the most about our meal there was the ability to carry on a conversation. I didn’t need to shout or strain to hear my tablemate speaking. At some restaurants in Bend, the industrial style-design makes talking with your tablemates very difficult.

Foodie Friday

Three Things Challenge (TTC) – Price

Bend Branches always appreciates your comments and likes. Comments may not appear right away since they’re screened for spam prior to posting. Thanks!

Driving around the bend-Sijo poem: LAPC, TTC, SWPC

/ SoyBend / 9 Comments

Driving around the bend, visions of new worlds come into view.
Splashes of warm color, framed in cool blue, catch our attention.
Images pass by fast and vanish, remembered as a dream.

Driving around the bend near Sisters, OR
Sunset near Sisters, Oregon
Painted Hills Oregon
Approaching the Painted Hills, Oregon
Fall color McKenzie Pass
Fall color on McKenzie Pass, Oregon

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge (LAPC) #191- Curves

Three Things Challenge (TTC) #862- Color & fast

Sijo Wednesday Poetry Challenge (SWPC) – Blue

Knowth-Fiction & Facts: LAPC & TTC

/ SoyBend / 25 Comments

Walking towards the burial mounds of Knowth, in County Meath, Ireland, it’s easy to imagine they must have many stories to tell. The largest mound was likely created circa 3200 BC. This is part of the World Heritage Site of Brú na Bóinne. I featured another passage tomb nearby in The façade of Newgrange.

Each image tells a story on its own, but I created a Tale of Knowth to go along with the photos.

Tale of Knowth

Knowth, County Meath, Ireland

“Go to the mounded land on the day fall begins.” Maimeó said to me weeks before her passing.

Once I found the 18 mounds, I didn’t know where to turn. I followed the curving trail around the largest mound. A cool gust from the north made the emerald grass covering the mound dance in the wind.

“Find the sunburst kerbstone. It will show you the way.” I remembered Maimeó’s words.

The sunburst kerbstone? I thought. Spirals, crescent, and other patterns covered the boulders encircling the mound. I wondered how I would find the right one.

I trudged around the perimeter of the mound, pulling my cloak close. Light snowfall drifted by me and settled in the characters carved into stone.

Why is it snowing on autumn’s eve? I thought to myself. I tried to keep warm by rubbing my arms and stamping my feet. Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted something.

Kerbstones
Continue reading →