Exotic Game Ranch

Posted on October 19, 2014 by treshabarger

As part of the annual Creedmoor Oktoberfest, Texas Disposal Systems opens up their exotic game ranch for tours. TDS provides a home for more than 2,000 animals (100-plus species) with many of them on them endangered species list. Hunting is not allowed on the TDS Exotic Game Ranch.

Last year I showed up too late in the day at Oktoberfest and missed the tour. This year I made sure I was on the first bus, camera in hand. It’s an abbreviated tour and we didn’t get to see all the areas or all the animals, but there were plenty of exotic game in the pastures we drove through.
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A Blackbuck antelope, from the Indian subcontinent.

Blackbuck Antelope

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Common Eland bull.

Eland

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Eld’s deer.

Eld’s Deer

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Scimitar Horned Oryx. Our TDS guide, Wayne, said that none of these animals live in Africa anymore; they’ve been hunted to extinction there.

Scimitar Horned Oryx

Return to Charcoal

Posted on October 16, 2014 by treshabarger

The Cat Muse helped me with my return to charcoal sketching. The bamboo skewers help me with the ellipse of the bowl opening and the spacial relationship between the plum and the white vase.

A tri-color cat sleeping at the bottom of a still life arrangement (plum, bowl, vase)

Muse of the arts

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For this sketch, I decided to create the shapes only using the tones; I didn’t draw the shapes at all. Dark objects still present difficulties for me; they should be more than a shadowy glob.