My Giraffe-thingy (Sketchcrawl #30)

January 22 was the 30th World Wide Sketch crawl. The Los Angeles group decided to visit the Natural History Museum.  I’d never visited before, so I was particularly excited to go.  [Interesting side note: I’ve discovered over the last year or two that I have really high expectations when it comes to museums/aquariums/etc.  This unfortunately(fortunately?) comes from having grown up near some really awesome museums during my formative years (The Smithsonian in DC, the Aquarium at the Harbor, Science Center).  In my head, I’ve just thought that ALL museums were this awesome. You can understand my disappointment when I started giving other locations as an adult and realized how lucky I had been.]

The NHM was a really neat place to go and draw.  There was a pretty large turn out of other artist from the area.  It was a hoot to see a large gaggle of artist, huddled around the dinosaur display, sketchpads out.  Watching the other visitors was even cooler, as they tried to figure out what was going on.

I kept to myself for the most part, since this trip was supposed to be my Artist Date for the week (Julia Cameron’s Artist’s Way).  I wanted to feel the complete freedom to go where I wanted, and linger as long as I wanted.

I loved the animal exhibits. Drawing animals is sooo much easier knowing that they won’t be moving on you. You know, being dead and stuffed an all.

A few nights before this, I had a typical “Crazy Megan” dream (as my husband calls them) involving a cabin in the woods,  aliens, and a weird looking animal–a strange mixture between a zebra and giraffe.  I wrote this the next morning after I woke up: “Last night I dreamed up this giraffe like creature, but with tan and brown stripes like, a zebra’s.   Maybe my giraffe-thingy lives in the jungle. It would have have short fir because of the humidity.  Not a long neck, cause he can’t reach the tree tops.  So maybe he grazes, like a deer. I’ll try and draw it later.” I wish I HAD drawn it, but I didn’t. And now I have no pictorial proof of my awesome idea.

And then, while drawing in one of the animal exhibits at the NHM…   There it was.

My Giraffe-thingy.  It was REAL.

I stood there in complete shock, reading the description on the plaque: “Okapis are the only living relatives of the the giraffe.  Despite their large size, they were weren’t discovered until 1901.  The have foot-long blue tongues that they use to strip leaves and buds from trees, and also to clean their eyelids and ears!”

All I could think was this: MY BRAIN IS AWESOME. I IMAGINED IT AND IT CAME TO LIFE!!  Well, not really life, since this particular giraffe-thingy was very dead. And stuffed. But still.

Too bad I wasn’t actually alive in 1901 to claim the credit that I was due.