Pollinator Posters

Pollinators are beautiful, cool, and important--and they are stressed out. Even if you don't know exactly what a pollinator is, you need this poster. Pollinators are IN for interior decor. The North American Pollinator Protection Campaign and Co-evolution Institute have been using my Pollinators painting in their campaign to raise awareness among humans about these essential and beautiful beasts. Yes, pollinators are our friends.

Update: These popular posters are out of print. I have only a handful left. Just send a 20.00 check to my address, which includes postage and handling. I'll send you this 28 x 24 inch poster in a cardboard tube. Or Write me. –PM

Pollinators, by Paul Mirocha

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Watch Monarchs while you still can

Any school kid can identify a monarch butterfly, even if they didn't pay attention in biology class. They are part of normal life. The more adventurous grade-school kids have even caught, banded, and released these butterflies so scientists can track and understand their amazing migration pattern.

Common as milkweeds, we all notice them, and take as a fact of life that monarchs will show up every summer. Yet, there is more to this common insect than meets the eye, plus a lot of misinformation when you want to know more.

The questions add up fast. These creatures, weighing less than an ounce, may migrate 1500 miles back and forth every year to their over-wintering site. That's 25-30 miles per day. Why do they go through all that trouble? And how do they know the way, when it's the 3rd or 4th generation that makes the trip back to southern Mexico after the summer breeding season in North America.

The monarch life cycle is so complex and almost unbelievable, that few people understand how to explain it, but that's exactly what we must do. Their fate now rests in how well we humans can communicate and cooperate with each other to help them. Because due to changing weather patterns and habitat destruction, the next generation of humans, or maybe the next one, or the next after that, may never get to see one.

If you really want to know the truth about something, you'd go to someone who has spent their life studying it. For monarchs, that's Dr Chip Taylor, founder of Monarch Watch, a monarch butterfly research and information center that employes thousands of school kids to help track the numbers and their migrations.

Monarch Watch, based in Lawrence, Kansas, in the middle of it all, has evolved different maps of Monarch migration patterns over the years. When I first designed a map for the National Park Service book, Frequently Asked Questions about Butterflies, a few years ago, they had it down to two black and white maps--one for spring and one for fall. I was sure that the data could be combined into one map and also made easier to understand for the grade-school butterfly-banders and almost any non-scientist.

This spring, after a disastrous winter freeze in the monarch
over-wintering grounds in the southern Mexico, Dr. Taylor called on me to redesign that map from the NPS book for a poster that they could distribute. The map still wasn't quite right to him. We sent proofs  back and forth for weeks before he was satisfied that it was as correct as possible.

That's how science works--you never assume you know the whole story, and you will always be getting closer and closer to the truth, but never arrive.

I was happy to be involved with this project in many ways. I understand what's known about monarch migration now and I've helped hundreds of others to do the same.

I'll never take anything in life for granted again, even the smallest. I can't exactly explain why, but if the monarchs were gone, part of our collective Homo sapiens soul would leave with them.

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Tuzigoot Visitor's Center exhibit

Exhibit panel for the new Tuzigoot National Monument visitors Center.

Last year I received a commission from the National Park Service to create an introduction panel to the new redesign of the Tuzigoot National Monument visitor's center in northern Arizona. The exhibit panels may be in place by the end of this summer.



The theme of the exhibit was a unique and interesting one: seeing the ancient pueblo culture through the eyes of archeologists from the 1930s, the time when the excavations were being dome for the park. We wanted to present a picture of how scientists at the time thought about prehistoric peoples and how visitors to the monument viewed it through their own culture.



The panel was to be almost 5 feet tall. To evoke the time period, we decided to create a retro design in the style of the WPA posters done in the 1930s for the National Parks.



These old WPA posters by mostly anonymous artists are among the best and most appealing work done in the history of poster design. Deceptively simple at first look, I found they were not at all easy to emulate! I failed on my first few attempts.



To my embarrassment, when we placed my second design in an array of old poster designs and found I needed to go back to the drawing board.

My original design focused too much on the 1930s people and the cool old Packard car (which I put the most time into) but not enough on the natural scene and the actual monument in particular. Somehow these old posters managed to take relatively simple natural scenes and features and make them feel like they are a wonder of the world, impressive as the pyramids. 

I also realized from this comparison exercise that a lot of the effect of these old posters came from use of the dramatic silhouetted graphic foreground. 

The old posters also used a very limited color palette and it is amazing what they did with it. Many were silkscreened and used only 4-5 inks and some split fountain gradations. My first try had 3 times that many colors and too much detail. I sampled the colors from these old posters in Photoshop and created a color scheme from that.

To evaluate the final installation, step back in time and see Tuzigoot for yourself.

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To see more historical WPA posters go here:

Posters from the WPA, at the Library of Congress

And there is a cool book: Posters for the People: The Art of the WPA

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Dreaming New Mexico

A symbolic Zia New Mexico garden (click to enlarge)

There is no mistaking this local garden for big agribusiness. It is designed around the the shape of a traditional Zia Pueblo sun symbol, the same one that appears on the New Mexico flag. The garden is still a concept and a symbol in itself of the interdependence of nature and cultures. If it is ever built, it will feature a meticulously thought out display of traditional and modern New Mexico crops arranged according to nutritional content, and cultural importance--like the "Three Sisters," corn, beans, and squash planted in the central spiral.

When I first got the client's sketch for this piece from Bioneers Collaborative Initiative, a group of pragmatic visionary planners, for the cover of their report, "Dreaming New Mexico," I hesitated to take it on for a few days. I thought it would be impossible to paint. There was so much scientific detail that it seemed at first to require a boring and textbook-like map or diagram of some kind with symbolic pattern fills, if the viewer was going to be able to identify the plants in each bed. Yet the whole purpose was to make the abstract idea seem real and appealing to the imagination, even to the taste buds! It was to be a garden that one would think about: food for thought.

My client's original intent was to visualize the hypothetical garden in a realistic way. It was certainly not anything that a photograph could convey. They wanted a painting. So I decided to try to give them one: a digital painting.

As it turned out, a little bit of scale exaggeration and idealizing of the plants made this work on its own as a painting. They decided, in the end, not to even violate the painting with little numbers and a key. I created a black and white line diagram of the mandala shaped beds and labeled each plant species there. This map was included inside the cover.

"Looks wonderful, " was the email reply to my first color proof.

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Secret Wild Pig Sketches Revealed

A Painting without a good drawing behind it is like a body without a skeleton, like a jellyfish of of water. Well, almost. We usually don't look at each other's bones, but they are there underneath, forming what we see about a person. They are the unseen essence that gives form to life. Same thing with a painting.

This is the final pencil sketch for the book cover.

Pencil sketch From Moon of the Wild Pigs, by Jean Craighead George. 

My first illustrated kids book. Final painting is below.

Last January I had the pleasure of a studio visit from Karen Nelson Hoyle, Curator of the Kerlan Children's Literature Research Collections at the University of Minnesota, my alma mater. She was interested in acquiring the correspondence and sketches from books that I illustrated by some authors already in their collection.

One of these files was from Moon of the Wild Pigs, by Jean Craighead George. I illustrated this special edition in 1990 and it was one of teh main reasons I quit my full time graphic design job at the University of Arizona to become a full-time illustrator.

We had a nice chat, but digging out these old drawings did something else for me. Why is it that the rough studies and sketches that lead up to a painting are often more interesting than the final work itself? Maybe it's because that's where all the juice is. They are records of that mysterious creative process: researching the subject, feeling it out, ideas are tried out, compositions carefully crafted, things deleted...

Sketches are often not seen or valued, but they are the parent, or the seed from which a final painting grows. And probably other final paintings could come from each sketch as well. They are not meant for anyone but the artist and are rarely seen.

These sketches were final pencils, compiled on tracing paper from many smaller elements. I sent these to Harper Collins for approval before starting the color art. The line work is very accurate, yet I still made small corrections as I traced these sketches onto my final paper on a light table.

The final art was created using a combination of colored pencils and pastel dust--ground up chalk pastels applied in layers with a brush and lots of fixative. I use to have to wear a gas mask while I was working in this technique.

Some of these pencil sketches have been in the dark for 15 years or more. I scanned some of them for my own record before giving them away.

A Spiny lizard. I got to handle this handsome dude back stage at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum.

I had forgotten this: I flipped the image when I transfered it to my paper for color work.

This piece was deleted by the editors at sketch stage. I remember hiking up a canyon in the Tucson Mountains at night after a big rain, with a camera and flash to catch these Spadefoot toads mating in the short-lived pools. I still think about finishing a painting from this one.

I didn't draw every hair here because I would do that on the final--all I needed was the outlines. I traveled to a ranch where the Game and Fish Department had some orphan  javelinas in a pen. I got to pick up one of the babies. They look cute, but it's surprising how tough and wiry their hair is. 

I always want to touch what I'm going to draw if I can. If it's edible or drinkable, I'll taste my subject. I didn't eat any wild pigs however.

The boar welcomes the new baby to the clan.

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Coyote Shit: A Philosophical Perspective

Taken out of context, the slide of the coyote feces on my slide talk, The Art of Business Thinking 1,  might seem like a random act of image-slinging for simple shock value. Well, maybe that slide was dog poop. But let me explain.

The subject has to do with ridding ourselves of ideas, beliefs, or viewpoints--the ones that no longer serve us, but that we hang onto anyways. Sometimes it's worth arguing the pros and cons of an issue, but that could take a lot of time. That's why an  image of coyote shit is often the most efficient solution to a tiresome debate: you can quickly get on to the next topic. The new idea.

If you think about it, you'll see that most ideas, beliefs, and viewpoints are temporary. They can easily become just plain wrong wrong as they age. The most decisive way to deal with them is quick release.

I think this is close to what Gary Hamel was saying in his book, Leading the Revolution. (I'm not saying he would use my analogy.) Hamel says that true innovation is more important than the simply new, which might just be the latest fad. Achieving authentic innovation usually means tearing down and recreating traditional concepts and whole business models. Even the ones taught in school.

Sound something like what artists do? Well, that's because quick release and decomposition of old ideas is the essence of the creative process. There is only so much room on a canvas, so quick removal, or overpainting, of the old allows room for the new.

Coyotes instinctively know this. That's why they are one of the most adaptable and successful mammals on our planet. And the subtle connection with the creative process may be why they are considered sacred animals here in the Southwest here I live.

I took some better photos of verifiable coyote poop while on a hike in the desert recently. Coyotes like to shit on the trail, where they know you will see it. It's part of the scenery.

At first glance at their scat, one can see that coyotes are omnivores, like us. Except that they really do eat almost everything, even things that are not food. Their scat is usually covered with hairs, and full of berry rinds, seeds, bones, almost anything that is not digestible. You can tell a lot about what is being served in the area by a close examination.

I looked in the literature and the oral traditions of the Tohono_O'dham people in my region of Arizona. Coyote is usually described as a character with a certain personality we'll call Coyote, with a capital C. He is a trickster. In general, when Coyote shows up in the stories, things always take a turn for the worse, go wrong in creative ways that one would never have even imagined. Everything he tries to do fails, and not in a simple way, usually in an spectacular way. Or so it seems.

Yet Coyote was one of the first beings hanging around at the creation of the Earth. Along with the Buzzard, another low-life character. And Coyote helps in the Creation. Or tries to. But sometimes, unexpectedly, some good comes of the situations he messes up. It eventually serves a purpose that no one else had thought of.

Coyotes are considered a pest and must be one of the most hunted animals in North America. Yet they are still extending their range: in the last few decades coyotes have colonized the Eastern US, as well as their traditional ground in the West.

I know because I designed a map for a book I recently illustrated, Frequently Asked Questions About Coyotes. Maybe they really didn't need that map because coyotes are basically almost everywhere.

Despite bounty hunters and the best we can throw at them, coyotes are more successful than ever. Why? Because they are both adaptable and intelligent. They do not necessarily follow the rules, even those laid down by authorities on coyote behavior. They are also cooperative--they will take turns chasing down a rabbit to tire it out. Coyotes have even been seen cooperating with badgers. Of all things. I never would have thought of that.

Come to think of it, I've draw a lot of coyotes over my career as an illustrator. I decided to pay attention to what the coyote might have to say. There is often a deeper wisdom behind folly. So I started with his shit. After all it was right there in front of me.

So back to my point in the business talk. (Remember I did have a point.)

They are smart, flexible, observant, and playful. I think I'll adopt the coyote as the patron saint of free-lance illustrators.

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Here are to several versions of these stories collected from from the O'Odham People of Southern Arizona, my home.

• Aw-Aw-Tam Indian Nights, The Myths and Legends of the Pimas, Collected by J. William  Lloyd
• Named in Stone and Sky, an Arizona Anthology, edited by Gregory MacNamee
• A good collection of books on O'odham oral traditions are listed here. 
• Don't forget Gathering the Desert, written by my good friend Gary Paul Nabhan, and my first illustrated book done back in 1985. Read the chapter on  Coyote Gourds. 

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