oliver uberti

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Quarantine, 2020. Los Angeles, CA

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Wrong Way. Los Angeles, California

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Rush Hour. Los Angeles, California

Feels good to be sketching in awkward places again.

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This isn’t the skull of an alien. The Incas were one of many cultures to believe that an elongated skull was a symbol of nobility. 

A newborn designated for “cranial deformation” would have his or her head sandwiched between two boards for two to three years. According to a sign at the Inca Museum in Cusco, this practice had “no negative effects on mental capacity.” Riiiight. 

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A Quechua woman dozes in Cusco, Peru.

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When the Spanish invaded Cusco in 1533, they destroyed the Incas’ Temple of the Sun and lowered its intricate stone walls in order to build their far less impressive church on top.

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Incan and pre-Incan ceramics and designs at the Inca Museum. Cusco, Peru.

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I spent the last few days of 2015 trekking in the Peruvian Andes. Here, horses graze at our first night’s camp, Soraypampa (3850m).

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Yesterday I got the absolute privilege to meet Nola--one of only 5 northern white rhinos left on the planet (!)--during San Diego Zoo's #rally4rhinos. She was so big and sweet and powerful and beautiful. Go see animals while you can. Tourism supports conservation!

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I made my first underwater drawing this morning of @barringtonirving while we and the rest of the #flyingclassroom expedition team made our fourth and final SCUBA certification dive here in the Florida Keys. In addition to all the fish, we saw a nurse shark and a spotted eel and @jennygnichols almost sat on a stingray. Many more undersea drawings to come this fall off the coast of Bali. Stay tuned!

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Birdhouses. Great Falls, Virginia

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Farm road. Great Falls, Virginia

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Blue bells bloom along the Brandywine River near the studios of painters Andrew and N. C. Wyeth. Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania

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Scullers head out for an evening on the Schuylkill River near Boat House Row (upper right) and the Fairmount Water Works (center). 

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

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On the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, a couple huddles together under an umbrella—to check their individual smartphones.

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In anything at all, perfection is finally attained not when there is no longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away, when a body has been stripped down to its nakedness.

Author of The Little Prince, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry in his memoir, Wind, Sand and Stars

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On New Year's Eve, a glowing, LED-lined "puck" hovered high above Main Street in downtown Ann Arbor. As the last seconds of 2013 ticked down, the puck—designed by Claudette Jocelyn Stern and John Daniel Walters of Ann Arbor's own METAL—descended to the street.

I made some pen studies that night. Last week, I finally got around to working one up with watercolor.