Chimp Sketch of the week #40

Equality and Individually Primate Paint Together

In preparation for the opening of my show tomorrow I have made this short film. Incase your not already aware based on my months of posting on the subject tomorrow in Florida my gallery show Equality and Individually opens. This is a group art show with myself and a group of chimps that live in a sanctuary in Florida. It includes five collaborative paintings that I did with the chimps and the show is designed to raise money and awareness for chimps that spent there lives in cages at medical laboratories and are now living a free life in sanctuary. This show has been a year in the making and it opens tomorrow I am so proud and thankful for my new friends at Save the chimps

Chimp Sketch of the Week # 39

Melody

This is a film showing the creation of a portrait of Melody a chimp that lives in a chimpanzee sanctuary called Save The Chimps in Florida. This a collaborative painting done with a chimp named Cheetah another resident at Save The Chimps and will be on display at gallery 14 in Vero Beach Fl in May. 

Chimp Sketch of the Week #38

The Chimp Painter

Below is a short film that talks about my newest project. A series of collaborative art works by myself, and a group of Chimpanzees that live in Sanctuary in Florida

Chimp Sketch of the week #37

Venus

Another Sketch in anticipation of my show with the chimps this May

Chimp Sketch of the Week #36

Dorothy

Dorothy was a 13 year old chimp that recently passed she lived most of her life in a laboratory but luckily was able to live a very small part of her life in sanctuary.

Dorothy was born on the first day of spring in 1998 at The Coulston Foundation in Alamogordo, NM.  Coulston loaned Dorothy to another laboratory when she was very young. After Save the Chimps took over The Coulston Foundation, they were able to secure her return. Dorothy made the journey to Florida on her 13th birthday.

To find out more about Dorothy and make a donation in her honor to help other chimps in need visit Here 

The portrait of Dorothy below will be available for purchase soon. This portrait along with many others, including some done in collaboration with chimps were created to raise money and awareness for chimps in sanitary and laboratories around North America. I will be having a joint art show with the chimps in Florida this May. More on that soon…

Chimp Sketch of the week #35

Art Rage

This image was done on my friend Monika Manieckis iPad after an amazing lecture at the Society of Illustrators that she gave including a demo of her painting a still life. After the lecture a few of us went for drinks and I got my own privet demo. When I sat down to draw something what else would I make. Essentially this is a finger painting. not my best work but this was fun...Thanks Monika!

Chimp Sketch of the Week #34

Anna

Painted in watercolor another sketch for my Show in May in Florida more on that soon

Chimp Sketch of the week #31

Thoto RIP

This sketch is another one I recently painted of a resident at SAVE THE CHIMPS. Thoto was a circus chimp which had all his teeth pulled out as a measure of protection for his handlers afraid he might bite them. Thoto was eventually sold into medical research and forced to live in a cage. I instantly fell in love with his face when I saw his picture and it inspired me to paint him. This beautiful chimp is a perfect example of the great work that Save the chimps do because poor Thoto was forced through most of his life as an entertainer and lab experiment but thanks to save the chimps he was able to live the last ten tears of his life as a chimp.

For a full obituary of Thoto please go HERE and please consider donating some money in his honor.

Meet Thoto in this clip from YouTube. I was hoping to meet him one day but I am so happy that I could paint his portrait and honor him and save the chimps in this way.

Chimp Sketch of the Week # 30

Here are two drawings I did of two chimps that live at SAVE THE CHIMPS in Florida they were displayed prominently and for sale at a recent fundraiser. The one on the left is DEVON and was sold, the one on the right is JORDAN and still available. They also took the portrait of Jordan and printed it on T-SHIRT as another way to raise funds as seen in CHIMP SKETCH OF THE WEEK #27 you can buy that HERE.

Chimp Sketch of the Week #29

Charcoal #2 

This chimp is part of my on going experiment with Charcoal. This Chimp is available for you to by and take home. Click here to buy me

ATLAS Ayn Rand Slate and Scientific American

This week I did two illustrations about Ayn Rand and her book Atlas Shrugged. First on Wednesday Eric Johnson and I expanded on our collaboration when we published a piece on the on-line magazine Slate we then on Friday published a post on the same subject at the Primate Diaries on Scientific American

Chimp Sketch of the Week #28

Neil and HAM

The recent death of Neil Armstrong got me thinking mostly about the romanticism of mans accomplishments and determination. The journey into space and the landing on the moon was and will always be one of Mans greatest moments. But lets not forget that it was not only Man that lead to this achievement, so today as I pay tribute to Armstrong with a portrait I also pay tribute to HAM as a representative of all of the Chimps that gave their life to science and assisted in the ultimate landing on the moon. If it were not for these chimps the only Man to do a moonwalk would have been Michael Jackson.

The First Primate on the Moon

The First Primate in Space

Chimp Sketch of the week #26

Save the Chimps in Florida needs $800,000 for chimps with special needs

Chimp Sketch of the Week #25

Pepper (RIP)

I logged on to facebook the other day and I saw a post that Pepper the chimp had passed away. Pepper was born in 1970 and spent her first 27 years in research, first at a Merck, Sharp & Dohme laboratory, followed by seven years at the Buckshire Corporation. When she became too strong to control, she was sent to the NYU Laboratory for Experimental Medicine and Surgery in Primates (LEMSIP). Pepper spent some time in breeding, but was mostly used for research, including some 307 knockdowns, 36 punch liver biopsies, one open wedge liver biopsy, six cervical biopsies, 10 lymph node biopsies, and four bone marrow biopsies. In the lab, Pepper was plagued by fear and anxiety, and would rather starve herself than face an unpleasant situation. Luckily she spent the end of her life in Sanctuary at Fauna but unfortunately so many others do not.

I never met pepper of course but reading about her in the book The Chimps Fauna Sanctuary make me feel as if I did. It would be nice if everyone reading this post would go here and make a small donation to the Fauna Foundation in Peppers honor.

References:

http://www.releasechimps.org/chimpanzees/their-stories/pepper/

The Chimps of Fauna Sanctuary: A True Story of Resilience and Recovery by Andrew Westoll

Drawing based on photo by Frank Noelker


for a complete obituary of Pepper please click here 

Happy Anniversary

Today signifies the one-year partnership of the writer Eric Johnson and I publishing at Scientific American, we completed 32 posts together. Below is the image I created for today’s Anniversary post

Below are a few of my favorites over the year.

Chimp Sketch of the Week #24

Toby

Toby is a chimp living at the Chimps of Fauna Sanctuary in Canada. No one is sure where Toby was born but he lived his first 24 years in a zoo in Quebec, taught to act as a human child, wear clothes and eat with utensils. He still likes to wear bracelets and sunglasses from time to time but he also shakes his head continuously as a sign of stress and anxiety. Life for Toby at Fauna is not always easy being a bit of an outsider due to coming to the sanctuary later then most and from a different situation. He has had a few altercations with the other chimps once having a finger bit clean off of his hand.

To read more about Toby and the other residents at Fauna you should read the Book The Chimps Fauna Sanctuary by Andrew Westoll and read my review of the book here www.thisviewoflife.com

Chimp Sketch of the Week #23

Chimpanzee The Movie 

In Disney Natures Film “Chimpanzee”We Learn Whether Human or Non-Human Primate Family is King

        For me the movie “Chimpanzee” was as much about the apes in the audience as it was the apes on screen. The movie follows Oscar, a newly born chimp and his groups day to day activities in their constant search for food. Oscar is a rambunctious little chimp who is learning every day from his mother how to tale care of himself. Oscar has an occasional moment of independence but it will be years before Oscar will be able to fend for himself. In his group (which is his extended family) there are other children and their mothers as well as a chimp referred to by the narrator (Tim Allen) as Grandpa, who is on the cusp of his fiftieth birthday. There is also another chimp in the group that is singled out, an alpha male named Freddy. As soon as the movie begins we learn that Freddy is in no way interested in the youth of the group, as alpha it is his responsibility to patrol the borders of his territory and groom the other males to keep them in line.

       

      Freddy is busy ensuring the safety of the nut groves that exist on his territory becosue when in season they provide a feast for his group. But Scar and his rival group attack and in the process kill Oscar’s mother; this is where the story really begins.  Now alone Oscar is forced to try to fend for himself but he is too young and without his mother to teach him he is helpless.

      After being thrown aside by everyone else in the group, Oscar follows Freddy around to try to learn from him.  At first Freddy ignores young Oscar but then something truly amazing happens, Freddy begins to teach Oscar how to make tools and how to crack nuts. Freddy begins to share his food with Oscar, grooms him and then to make the adoption complete, he lets him ride on his back which is typical of a mother and child but never of an alpha male. According to Jane Goodall in a recent interview at People.com this almost never happens that an alpha male will adopt a young chimp and in turn save his life.

       

    As I sat there in the audience with my four-year-old daughter on my lap I could not help but think about the parent child relationship. Being the alpha male of my own small group with my own nut grove to protect I understood the difficulty of Freddy having to divide his time teaching and looking out for Oscar while also patrolling his borders and keeping the rest of the males in line. There is much for a hunter/gatherer to do in this modern world and parenting is more than just a mother’s job.  My daughter sat on my lap and I comforted her as she cried into my chest with compassion for Oscar. And at the same time that young Oscar fell asleep in Freddy’s arms, my daughter fell asleep in mine. I looked up and recognized us in them as the movie screen completed its transformation from screen to mirror.  

Chimp Sketch of the Week # 22

A Cheat

This week I am cheating, I did not do my Chimp Sketch of the Week instead I had my Daughter Lillian do one. This is what she came up with… not bad huh, a chimp … I mean chip of the old block.

Here is a few more images that Lillian has done lately. 

She has recently moved past abstract expressionism and become quite the figurative artist

All images © Lillian Eliza Gold

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 #11

Another old one from my sketchbook.
based on a photo by Frans De Wall