Neocolor II – Jana Bouc, Artist

“Le Bouc Caprine” Colored pencil and Neocolor II in Stillman & Birn Epsilon sketchbook, 10×8”

Yesterday, while reading The Blue Sisters by Coco Mellors, I came across a word I didn’t know: “caprine.” In a painting of the sisters, “the artist had given their faces a caprine quality.” A quick dictionary lookup said it means “relating to or resembling goats.” Yikes.

But I was delighted to find a new word for one of my favorite animals. Then it hit me: my last name, Bouc*, also means goat! (Billy goat, actually.) I immediately had to find a goat photo to sketch for the day’s self-portrait.

Preliminary sketch in colored pencils (that I colored over)

Which version do you like better? I think I should have stopped with the quirkier, more curious, more me, colored pencil version. But I wanted to keep playing and added Neocolor II crayons on top. One day I might learn to stop sooner rather than later.

*Bouc was my ex-husband’s family name, but I kept it after we parted. I’ve had that last name much longer than my father’s last name — a name I never liked and that wasn’t even really ours. My grandfather, a refugee from Kiev, was given it at Ellis Island because they said his real name couldn’t be spelled in English.

Me if I was a goat, photo reference:

Photographer: Andy Bodemir on Unsplash.com

If I Were an Animal (self-portrait?)

Coatimundi, 8×5”, colored pencils and Neocolor II

I’ve been doing a daily self-portrait in my journal since June. Today’s self-portrait took a detour—I drew an animal I’d like to be instead, because, why not? My journal, my rules.

I met a cute, young, friendly coatimundi* when I was traveling around Costa Rica years ago. We had stopped at Tilajari, a resort where we hoped to stay, but all the rooms were taken by the crew of the movie Congo, which was being filmed in the jungle nearby.

The proprietor was kind enough to give us a tour of the resort, which he had created from a dream and built and landscaped over 15 years. After petting the coatimundi, I reached up to pet a big toucan sitting on a low branch of a tree.

The toucan gently snatched the ring on my finger with its enormous yellow bill and started tugging at it. Our host laughed and told me these toucans were trained to steal gold. I guess he figured out my ring was silver because it released my finger and flew higher up in the tree.

*Coatimundis are in the raccoon family but are not nocturnal like raccoons, and they have funny snouts a little like pigs. The males are solitary and the females and their young band together in social groups of up to 25. The males only join them during mating season.