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himmapaan.bsky.social
Natee (they/them)
@himmapaan.bsky.social
23K followers 1.7K following 4.7K posts
Natee Himmapaan (Puttapipat). Illustrator.
Art, literature, history, natural history, food, handwriting.
Depression, anxiety, & all that jazz.
Fatigued and extremely bitter about social media.
Non-binary (they/them). 🏳️‍🌈

https://linktr.ee/himmapaan
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himmapaan.bsky.social
'Two Sirens'
Ink on Moleskine sketchbook paper, 128 × 206 mm, from 2020.

#ArtAdventCalendar
In an underwater scene, a sailfish, a mola, a mermaid whose flowing hair recalls marine algae, a dugong, and several golden trevally are grouped together in a vertically-oriented composition with some kelp against a black background. The illustration is drawn with intricate linework, with an emphasis on contours and varying line weight, and with areas of solid black ink.
December 9, 2025 at 5:03 PM
himmapaan.bsky.social
Blue Betta. Watercolour, approximately 115 × 110 mm. From 2019.

#ArtAdventCalendar
Watercolour painting of an ornamental blue Betta splendens, with especially long, flowing fins resembling underwater drapery.
December 7, 2025 at 11:21 PM
himmapaan.bsky.social
#PudgyHorse Lascaux Tribute 2. A companion piece to the first, following one of the other cave horses with a darker colour morph. Again, painted with pigments made by Mary Sanche from Cretaceous rocks from the Albertan badlands. From 2020.

#ArtAdventCalendar
Painting of my character, Pudgy Horse, a horse of baroque type appearance with luxuriant mane and tail, and deliberately exaggerated proportions, including short, slender legs with dainty hooves and an extremely generous girth; here painted in tribute to one of the famous horses in the Lascaux cave paintings using similar colours and simplified shapes.
December 6, 2025 at 3:26 AM
himmapaan.bsky.social
A #PudgyHorse tribute to the Lascaux cave paintings, painted with the Strata Trio watercolours made by @thoughtsupnorth.bsky.social from Cretaceous rocks from the Albertan badlands. From 2020.

Might as well post this one as it's been stolen and sold on Australian Temu. 🙃

#ArtAdventCalendar
Painting of my character, Pudgy Horse, a horse of baroque type appearance with luxuriant mane and tail, and deliberately exaggerated proportions, including short, slender legs with dainty hooves and an extremely generous girth; here painted in tribute to one of the famous horses in the Lascaux cave paintings using similar colours and simplified shapes.
December 5, 2025 at 1:05 AM
himmapaan.bsky.social
Ol' Salty, Pirate Saltasaurus. A bit of silliness which became a personal favourite.

Sepia ink over blue pencil on Strathmore grey toned paper, 110 × 143 mm, from 2013.

#ArtAdventCalendar
Drawing of a Saltasaurus with its back to the viewer in three-quarter view, wearing a voluminous sash around its waist, in which is stuck a profusion of swords whose hilts are carved as the heads of various dinosaurs and pterosaurs. It also wears a tricorn hat trimmed with long feathers and carries a spear.
December 2, 2025 at 10:54 PM
himmapaan.bsky.social
'Everything has its proper name. I shall call it “Armadillo” till I found out the real one…’

Illustration for The Beginning of the Armadillos, from Rudyard Kipling’s Just So Stories, published by The Folio Society, 2012.

Watercolour on Saunders Waterford hp, 140 x 240mm.

#ArtAdventCalendar
Watercolour illustration of a pair of armadillos in a vertically-oriented composition, with the armadillos towards the top, and the grassy environment leading the eye downward in gestural, impressionistic brushstrokes. The palette is predominantly in warm ochres and oranges.
December 2, 2025 at 2:37 AM
himmapaan.bsky.social
And this one with an Edmontosaurus is from 2013.

It was commissioned by the science faculty of the University of Alberta as their Christmas card that year. In the event, they didn't reproduce the image in full but cropped it heavily, losing much of the composition and its various elements.
Illustration in sepia ink on tan toned paper with white highlights. In an oval frame, an Edmontosaurus carrying pannier baskets filled with festive-looking gifts stands in a snowy landscape with two handlers, one in early sixteenth century European clothing and wide-brimmed hat, the other in Ottoman clothing and turban; each carrying a long staff. In the foreground, a Pachyrhinosaurus and a pair of troodontids approach a great pile of food and produce on the ground.
November 29, 2025 at 10:52 PM
himmapaan.bsky.social
I keep wanting to return to the Holiday Hadrosaur theme, perhaps with a different hadrosaur each time, but I'm worn down just thinking of the time and work required, because that's where I am these days. 🥲

This is still Parasaurolophus because that crest feels so redolent of festive fanfare to me.
Brown pencil sketch of a Parasaurolophus in side view, carrying pannier baskets filled with goods, facing and walking towards the left. It bows its head with its beak almost touching the raised hand of a hooded, cloaked figure, who walks alongside it, carrying a staff and leading the way.
November 29, 2025 at 7:05 PM
himmapaan.bsky.social
I love the Emperor Jahangir's description of the turkey, then a completely novel creature to the Mughal Court.

English translation from the original Persian by Alexander Rogers and Henry Beveridge.

3/3
'One of these animals in body is larger than a peahen and smaller than a peacock. When it is in heat and displays itself, it spreads out its feathers like the peacock and dances about. Its beak and legs are like those of a cock. Its head and neck and the part under the throat are every minute of a different colour. When it is in heat it is quite red - one might say it had adorned itself with red coral - and after a while it becomes white in the same places and looks like cotton. It sometimes looks of a turquoise colour. Like a chameleon it constantly changes colour.'
November 27, 2025 at 5:46 PM
himmapaan.bsky.social
Ustad Mansur, Turkey cock (Meleagris gallopavo), Mughal, c. 1612.

Opaque watercolour and gold on paper, 12.2 × 12.8 cm, full page 26.4 × 39 cm.

Happy Thanksgiving, US friends! 🦃

1/3
Painting of a male turkey, facing left, framed within a floral gold decorative border and bands of calligraphy at top and bottom. This itself is mounted onto an album leaf decorated all over with gold flowering plants.
November 27, 2025 at 5:46 PM
himmapaan.bsky.social
These impertinent machines.
November 27, 2025 at 5:21 AM
himmapaan.bsky.social
I beg your pardon?
Screenshot of a CAPTCHA test text with the letters 'FGAC.'
November 27, 2025 at 5:09 AM
himmapaan.bsky.social
Autumn Leaf 3
Watercolour, approximately 80 × 132 mm.

I lost my way with this one. The extent of the rust spots were paving my way to overworking even without my own blundering, and I of course walked merrily -- and then tearfully -- right into it.

1/3
Watercolour painting of an autumn leaf, predominantly red towards its upper part, with a small area of yellow-gold at the lower end towards the stem. The leaf is covered all over with reddish-brown rust spots, with a large area of black on its upper right.
November 26, 2025 at 5:47 PM
himmapaan.bsky.social
Good morning. Jack Frost has been.
The frosted roof of a small garden shed.
November 26, 2025 at 9:17 AM
himmapaan.bsky.social
Glazing in watercolour. The first brush is clean water; the second, paint. Both are stroked very gently on.
November 23, 2025 at 9:07 PM
himmapaan.bsky.social
Sitting in the small hours in my pyjamas, wrapped in a shawl, freezing my toes off, and painting things in red and gold while listening to Bach's Jesu, meine Freude. Why, it feels like Christmas already. 😬
Watercolour painting of an autumn leaf in progress. A saturated orange-red towards the upper part; bright yellow-gold towards the bottom.
November 23, 2025 at 2:08 AM
himmapaan.bsky.social
Anchiornis. Detail from a drawing from 2019.

A new paper by Kiat et al indicates that Anchiornis probably couldn't fly.

(But I still think it might have been capable of 'falling with style'.)

www.nature.com/articles/s42...
Detail from a pencil drawing of Anchiornis, a small feathered paravian dinosaur from late Jurassic China. It is mostly black and white with a red head crest and pins down a small lizard with one of its feet. The drawing is small and very intricate.
November 22, 2025 at 4:14 PM
himmapaan.bsky.social
Autumn Leaf 2
Watercolour, approximately 75 × 127 mm.

A fiery bit of visual comfort now that winter is abruptly come.
Watercolour painting of an autumn leaf, in fiery red and gold; redder for most of the leaf's lower half, with dark rust spots scattered all over.
November 20, 2025 at 5:39 PM
himmapaan.bsky.social
I need this headache to go away, please. 😖😓
Humorous pencil drawing of a red-crowned crane with an arrow in its head, accompanied by the semi-caption, 'Oww...'
November 16, 2025 at 10:10 PM
himmapaan.bsky.social
I was of course making a reference to Frederic Leighton's 'Flaming June,' 1895.
Oil painting of a young woman curled up, asleep, on a classically styled marble seat strewn with fabrics. The view beyond is of a Mediterranean-looking seascape with sunlight sparkling on the water. The woman's similarly classically inspired garment is in bright, glowing orange; the 'Flaming June' of the painting's title. The work is one of Leighton's most famous and is evocative of the Greco-Roman world, typical of Leighton's Neoclassical oeuvre.
November 16, 2025 at 8:20 PM
himmapaan.bsky.social
Flaming J-- uh, November?
Detail from a watercolour painting of an autumn leaf in progress. The fiery reds and yellows of the leaves quilted surface resemble flickering flames.
November 16, 2025 at 3:25 AM
himmapaan.bsky.social
Autumn leaf 1
Watercolour, approximately 75 × 130 mm.

Suggested musical accompaniment:
youtu.be/htnXgyBbiyg?....
Watercolour painting of an autumn leaf of red and gold with dark brown spotting.
November 13, 2025 at 8:42 PM
himmapaan.bsky.social
Another of my original artworks in the @changelingart.bsky.social 'Deck the Halls' auction ending tomorrow, 12pm EST.

An older Holiday Hadrosaur from 2011. Sepia ink on Moleskine sketchbook paper, 209 ×128 mm.

www.facebook.com/share/p/17fi...
Drawing in sepia ink of the hadrosaur, Parasaurolophus, laden with pannier baskets filled with Yuletide gifts and decked with seasonal greenery. Two festively costumed human figures accompany the hadrosaur: one in a feathered turban and waist sash carries a wreath, the other, in western European 16th century clothing, wears a sword at the waist and carries a long staff decorated with sprigs of holly.
November 13, 2025 at 5:00 PM
himmapaan.bsky.social
Glazing in watercolour is time-consuming. Though that's perhaps a redundant explanation, given that everything is time-consuming when I attempt it. 😮‍💨🙁😑
Watercolour painting in progress of an autumn leaf in red and gold.
November 12, 2025 at 2:11 AM
himmapaan.bsky.social
This piece was inspired by Ohara Koson's woodblock print, 'Rooster and Weasel,' c.1930.
Colour woodblock print of a rooster in combat attitude leaping over a weasel. The animals are in three-quarter view and both face left, with the weasel's head craned upwards at the rooster.
November 10, 2025 at 5:56 PM