Tag Archives: Atlanta Zoo

Dont; mind me, while I stress eat all of the Panda Scout cookies!

It’s Panda Scout Cookie time again!

Cuteness abounds!

On my honor, I will try…to eat as many cookies as I possibly can….

And who could forget the Meihem’s first Panda Scout cookie sale and what Pinky did?

George Washington Bridge lane closure satire.

Princess Pinky Bao Bao…what have you done now?

zoo atlanta, bao bao, national zoo

Time to call in …Inspector panda!

Mei xiang and bao bao try to cover up highway-gate

Inspector Panda is on the job!

“Hello, Bai Yun? this is Lun Lun…about that detective you suggested…”

…of course Boo-mints are pretty good too.

Inspector panda

Will the twins get a merit badge for their road trip? will Lun Lun fess up to where the girls are? will Inspector Panda get a clue, or at least more twitter followers. Stay tuned!

Bao Bao, washington DC cover-up

Oh, Pinky…what have you done?

Howdy, Mr Kitty, kindly tell us where a tired old cowpoke can get a boo beer and a cuppycake.

Also it is time to Fall Forward and Spring Back!

Bob explains daylight savings time to the panda kindergarten

spring back, fall forward?

Be the Bear!
Bob T Panda

Day 28 ~ 31 Days of Pandas

Oh my. We are almost at the end of the 2019 edition of 31 Days of Pandas. Recently, one of my readers asked how 31 Days of Pandas got started. Maybe what they actually asked was “What the heck were you THINKING!!!!????”

As I recall, the first year I did this, it was in November, and an illustrator friend had just completed A Monster a Day during the month of October. Another popular one-a-day art project for artists is Inktober, where people post a drawing a day during the month of October. While I have not participated, I’ve seen some great drawings posted for Inktober, and I think for those looking for a kick in the pants to do some regular drawing, I think it is a fine thing. Since making art is my day job, there is less of an incentive, and it feels like another thing on my lengthy “to do” list. Don’t let my attitude stop you from trying this!

My original 30 Days of Pandas was to create a drawing that every day, in honor of Po’s Birthday! I added a new panda to the drawing every day for a month. This turned out to be more work than I thought, as I had to re-scan the drawing every time I added a panda. It did turn out to be a really fun drawing, though!

Days one and two!

Day nine!

I think I need to have the ballon panda as something on Redbubble!

18 pandas

Day 18

day 25 -30 days of pandas

30 pandas day 28

Day 28

And the final image…

30 days of pandas - day 30

30 Days of Pandas!

I hope you enjoyed this look back at the origins of 31 days of Pandas!

Be the Bear!
Bob T Panda

Opposition Research

Pinky has enlisted Six and Sebben as her campaign staff, but there is still something of a learning curve. (Okay, maybe it’s more of a learning precipice, but whatebber!) Let’s check in as Pinky works with her new minions to achieve World Domination™!

“If there is dirt, we’ll find it!”
Motto of Six and Sebben Political consultants INC.

Panda on!
Bob T panda

Birthday week is upon us!

Hmmm…I wonder if anything important is happening this week. Now let me think about it for a minute…

Well, while I’m thinking about it, how about this ‘toon which perhaps explains the beginning of Six and Sebben’s rivalry?

Twinkies 2.0

Twinkies 2.0 put on a show!

Could it be…Mei Watch?

we are still hoping for a panda cub trifecta

Oh yeah… I think it’s Pinky’s birthday soon…and Bubba’s!

National Zoo cub makes mom Mei Xiang disappear

oops.

Princess Pinky is fooled by Mei Xiang at the National Zoo

Oh Princess Pinky, mom has a trick or two up her paw, I think…

If you can’t be in China to celebrate Actual Pinky’s Actual Birthday, why not have a Pinky Paper Doll party!

Bao Bao in her pajamas

Just the thing for a cozy evening at home with mom and the panda cam!

Princess Pinky paper doll

Princess Pinky and her very first tutu, gifted to her by her big brother Tai Shan!

Edgar Degas Little Dancer outfit

Inspired by one of Pinky’s favorite artworks, a sculpture by Edgar Degas, which seems to be in every art museum on the east coast.

Bao Bao paper doll

Just the thing for family parties!

I guess I need to do a Bubba Paper doll too, don’t I?

He’s small for now, but Bubba Bei Bei is shaping up to be a whole lot of panda!

And how did Pinky manage to hack into my computer again?

How many times do we have to tell you…Don’t make pinky mad!!!!

Panda On Like There’s No Tomorrow!
Bob T Panda

#GreenlandIsNotForSale

Pinky’s Progress

Pinky has new minions, but can she get them to stop fighting with one another and concentrate on the serious business of getting Pinky elected president next year? It’s gonna be a long cubpaign!

Pinky calls the meeting of her cubpaign staff to order…

Pinky and her new minions get down to serious business

Meanwhile the ordering process for the pins is now complete, and I’m hoping they will be in my hot liddle paws by the end of August. I’m making my lists and checking them twice…no make that 3 times. Stay tuned for more news of Pandas coming your way!

Panda On
Bob T Panda

The end of something wonderful…

Did I scare you? I didn’t mean it was the end of The Panda Chronicles or anything like that. I meant that it is the end of boo shoot season, the favorite season of pandas everywhere. I read that Zoo Atlanta had announced the end of the season, when the wonderful fresh bamboo shoots were no longer available.

I imagined myself to be a fly on the wall of Six and Sebben’s hammock room…

Let’s listen in, shall we?

Will these two ever get along?

Be the bear!
Bob T Panda

Missing Wu…

Mr. Wu was the first baby panda I watched from birth. The following year I watched as the Meihems, and then Pinky were born, but Wu will always be the cubby of my heart. I hope that I get to visit him in China, but sometimes it is hard to track specific pandas. You think they are going to be one place, and then you go, and they have been moved, sometimes the day before.

I know I’ll recover. There are more panda cubbies to watch and love, but they won’t be the Wu Self.

where happy pandas eat bamboo, oh why, oh why, can’t…Wu?

Please refer any questions to Mr Wu’s legal team.

Are you now, or have you ever been a panda?

093-pinky-pinky-tv-100-res.jpg

Princess Pinky is drawing a line in the sandbox.

Mr Wu tries to take charge

Uh oh. All is not well in Pandyland!

http://www.whidbeylifemagazine.org/

Don’t believe EVERYTHING the panda kindergarten says!

Meanwhile, we wrapped up our successful Bubba and Ping Pin project over on Kickstarter last week! They just celebrated their 10th anniversary last week as well! Follow the link to see some of the amazing projects the’ve done over the years. I’m proud of all the projects I’ve done there, since my first one in 2012. While they have all been modest projects, relatively speaking, they have been significant to me, in the support I received and what I was able to do with it.

Thanks to all of you who supported me, I was able to:
* Travel to Italy for an egg tempera workshop in 2012
* Publish the very first collection of the Panda Chronicle ‘toons in 2012
* Publish Pandamorphosis in 2014
* Travel to China to see pandas (including actual Pinky) and create a series of artworks on my return in 2017
* Create the first of the Pin series (Starring Pinky!!!!!) in 2019
* Create the second Pin project with Bubba and Ping Ping;  in 2019

Thank you all for being the bears!
Bob T Panda

 

Just because Halloween is over…

…it doesn’t mean we can’t have a round up of Halloweenie ‘toons from the past.

But first…do you know what happens this weekend?

Bob explains daylight savings time to the panda kindergarten

spring back, fall forward?

And now, I think this is the very first Halloween ‘toon I did…

Panda Kindergarten halloween party

Trick or Trick!!!!!!!

Darn those Meihems!!!!

Okay, so this one is not strictly Halloween, but still…

Pinky

Well, who did you THINK she would enlist in her final attempt to stop Mittens the cat? also not really Halloween, but VERY scary, none the less!

all pandas eve

Okay. That was just WAY too scary.

scary

Ha ha! That Pinky is so clever!

all pandas eve

Will Pinky EVER quit tormenting her brother?

trouble…trouble…trouble…It starts with “T” and that rhymes with “P” and that stands for Pinky!

Hope you enjoyed your double extra pandy Friday round up! It’s been a hard week with…um…everything and on top of all the everything, there was THIS!!!

Don’t forget to VOTE!!!!!!

Panda on
Bob T Panda

The moment you’ve all been waiting for…

No, Pinky has not taken her rightful place as Presydent of the Untied States. Nor has Ping Ping learned to speak American Panda. (Ping!!!) No! Today is the day that Six and Sebben get their Panda Scout uniforms!

Huzzah! On with the show!

Cuteness abounds!

Panda On!
It’s Wednesday! gateway to the gateway to the weekend!
Bob T Panda

Literature of the Panda and then some…

Fasten your seat belts, get a bootini and a cupcake because this is going to be one of those long posts.

Do you like my new book?

I want to take a little side trip from all things panda today, (mostly…except for The Literature of the Panda!) and talk about a book I’m reading. Today’s post is not completely devoid of pandas, since pandas and storytelling go together like, um…cuppycakes and frosting. I’ve been reading: This is What a Librarian Looks Like by Kyle Cassidy.

Now, in the interests of full disclosure, this book is written by another client of my agent Gordon, over at Fuse Literary, and he has been yammering on about it on social media since it’s recent publication. “What’s the big deal?” I thought. “It’s pictures of librarians? Why would I want to read that?”

Everything I know

Oh, but now that I am reading it, I see that it is that and so, so much more. To understand why I think this book is so significant, I need to share a little bit of personal history. I was a library kid. While my family owned some books, most of my reading material came from the public libraries in Pittsburgh, where I grew up. We mostly went to a smallish branch library not too far from home, but sometimes we’d go to the big Carnegie Library over in the Oakland section of Pittsburgh. This was one of the grand libraries, that only a robber baron in good standing could provide to the little people of Pittsburgh.

Panda Satire Made Easy

Panda satire explained for you!

I didn’t have the happiest childhood, and one of the best ways to escape my families dysfunctional dynamics, was to stick my nose in a book and transport myself somewhere else. Anywhere else, by whatever means possible. I can tune out so completely while reading, you can stand in front of me and yell, and I won’t pay any attention. (Trust me, this has been done.) While I also loved to draw, there is no escape from reality like a really good book.

I don’t remember interacting with the librarians, beyond taking my piles of books to the counter and getting them stamped with the due date. I was a very shy child (why are you laughing? I really was) and I can’t imagine I would have started a conversation with an adult on my own initiative. But whoever you were, you librarians in Pittsburgh in the 60’s, you saved my life.

What a Librarian Looks Like does indeed have pictures of librarians from all over the world, but it also has statements about what they do, what they provide in this age of vast amounts of information flying through cyberspace, but also why what they do is so important. The passion they feel for their calling (because it is a calling) comes through in every sentence. The book tells some library history, as well as wonderfully thought provoking essays by writers who also have deep emotional histories with libraries. One of my favorites is by that rock star of the library world, Nancy Pearl, of Seattle Public Library and NPR fame. She is such a rock star that she even has her own action figure. Her essay about wanting to live in her childhood library rang so true. What better fortress to resist the world’s evils than the fortress that is full of the knowledge of all time?

What do you mean by “was?”

One of the stories that Kyle tells of a librarian’s personal history, moved me so much that I burst out in tears. Really! I think it was the idea that there was something she wanted desperately as a child, that she knew her family could not afford to provide, and she never forgot it. It stayed with her until she became a librarian herself and she found a way to provide this, and fought for the money to make it come true for other children.  I want you to read this book for yourself, and find the stories that reach in to your heart. I want you to find the stories that whisper in your ear and say, do you remember this?

I always wanted to be a painter, and I am immensely grateful for all the forces in the universe that allowed me to become one. I didn’t realize at the time, that I also really wanted to tell stories both with my paintings, and now with pandas. Through telling made up stories I hope to share the universal truths that bring our mutual humanity into being and focus.

You say sumi-e, I say Tsunami

Libraries are more important than ever. They are at the heart of community, in towns and cities, small and large. Librarians help people make sense of all the vast information that is out there, yammering for our attention. I hope every library in the country brings this book to live in their collection. Thank you Kyle, for thinking about this subject, and for bringing this book into the world.

What cats are reading at the beach this summer!

Panda on (right to your local library!)
Bob T Panda