Whales are mysterious creatures. Often only a small portion of these gigantic mammals are seen at the surface, leaving much to the imagination. These drawings are inspired by historical drawings of whales. Before the invention of the camera, at a time when people did not know what live whales looked like in their totality, artists and naturalists created drawings that now seem strange and almost mythical. Even today whales continue to be mysterious: seeming to exist somewhere between fact and fiction. These drawings are my version of hypothetical whale species.

“But I have swam through libraries and sailed through oceans; I have had to do with whales with these invisible hands; I am in earnest; and I will try.”  —Herman Melville