Chimp Sketch of the Week #19

With a Little Help From My Kid

Last week I took my four-year-old daughter Lillian to see the Movie “Chimpanzee” after the movie I asked her to draw a portrait of the little protagonist chimp Oscar and I told her I would do the same.

Here she is doing her drawing

Here is her drawing of Oscar

Here is mine

Look for my complete review of the film soon

Chimp Sketch of The Week #18

TOM


Tom is the oldest chimp at the Fauna Sanctuary and the only one born in Africa, Tom is the chimp ambassador of project R&R. It is their mission to end the use of chimpanzees in biomedical research and to help provide them release and restitution in permanent sanctuary. During his life in testing laboratories Tom was purposely infected with HIV. 


read more in my complete illustrated book review of the Chimps of Fauna Sanctuary at www.thisviewoflife.com 

chimp Sketch of the week #17

My brief meeting with Jane Goodall

This week for chimp sketch of the week I decided that instead of drawing a Chimp I would do a drawing of a person who has done so much for chimps and humans alike.

I was lucky enough to see Jane Goodall speak last week here on Long Island at Adelphi University.  I showed up two hours early in anticipation of her speech I was alone...

but it filled up quick.

This picture is taken from the bottom of the bleachers there is another couple of hundred people behind me.

When she first came on to the stage the college girls and biology students behind me giggled and said how cool she was, just a few of the millions of people that Jane has inspired over the last fifty years. She spent the first half of her speech talking about her experiences with the chimps and even greeted us with sounds similar to that of the chimps in Gombi, I was in pure heaven. After discussing the obvious similarities between chimps and humans she sited the obvious difference as well, our ability for abstract thought. She then posed a question: "if humans are in fact the most intelligent creators on the planet how come we are destroying the only home we have." 

After the speech there was a book signing over one thousand people got there books signed I was among the first one hundred but by the time I got to Jane I had about thirty seconds to get a copy of her book signed, tell her that she was a huge inspiration in my life, give her a copy of my book The Chimpanzee Manifesto and tell her it was an honor to hear her speak. 

I wanted to tell her that I was an artist and that I fell in love with chimps watching her program as a kid. I wanted to tell her that I was working on a series of portraits to try to help a Chimp Sanctuary in Florida and was hoping for a nod of approval. I wanted to ask if I could use my art to assist The Jane Goodall Institute and her in her global effort to help the chimps but there just was not enough time.  My meeting with Jane Goodall was brief but wonderful.  

Chimp Sketch of the week #16

This is a quick watercolor I did last night in my sketchbook with my kids crayola watercolor set