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youtube: swordwhale1
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illustration, tales and youtube by Teanna L. Byerts
curing Nature Deficit Disorder, one illustration at a time, one book at a time
(these pages are generally kid friendly: suitable for middle readers and older, PG/PG-13)
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all images © Teanna Byerts/Swordwhale Walking Illustration:
email me to commission your own illustrations, to buy prints, or for permission to use illustrations on this site
email me to commission your own illustrations, to buy prints, or for permission to use illustrations on this site
 created for Winterdance Dogsled Team
 In any place where there are seals, there are legends of the Seal Folk who take off their skins to walk on land in human form...
 Storyteller/psychologist Clarissa Pinkola Estes PhD, in "Women Who Run With The Wolves" talks about the problem of losing your "sealskin/soulskin" and how faerie and folk tales teach us the answers...
  Orca: also known as: mak-eh-nuk, keet, skana, swordwhale (zvaardwalvis), agliuk, niss'onkhgessyak, pictwhale, epaulard, kosatka drava, vaghund (hunting together like dogs), akan, grampus, svinka, innuatu, sadshi, repun kamui (master of the open sea)...and in Australia & New Zealand, just orcs.
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 "medicine wheel" portrait
  Orca looms large in the myths of the Northwest Coast, and there are stories of the whale folk who take off their fins to walk on land in human form. The fin becomes a boat...
 In the tales of J.R.R. Tolkien, the Elves, in the end, sail west to the Blessed Realm, leaving humans to their world of Middle Earth. In my tales, and illustrations, they are still here, disguised perhaps, but very much involved in teaching, making connections between humans and the rest of the Natural World. Bringing us back our sealskins, soulskins, our lost fins.
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e-mail me at:
catch me on Facebook under "Swordwhale", and YouTube as "Swordwhale1"
The Journey is the Destination...
"Do we walk in legends or on the green earth in the daylight? "
"A man may do both. For not we but those who come after will make the legends of our time. The green earth, say you? That is a mighty matter of legend, though you tread it under the light of day! " (from J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings)
"A man may do both. For not we but those who come after will make the legends of our time. The green earth, say you? That is a mighty matter of legend, though you tread it under the light of day! " (from J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings)
From a young age, other people's stories; in books, on film, in pictures, inspired me to imagine worlds beyond the one limited by the tidy farms and wooded hills of southcentral Pennsylvania. They also inspired me to go out and have a few real, grungy, sweaty, mosquito-bit, saddle-sored, paddle-blistered, tiger-noshed, owl-taloned, my-air-tank-is-redlining-at-ninety-feet adventures of my own. Flipper, Sea Hunt and Jaques Cousteau led me learn to snorkel and scuba dive. Fury of Broken Wheel Ranch, The Black Stallion, and Tornado (Zorro's trusty steed) led me to train my own wild black mustang. J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings inspired me to learn swordfighting, archery, camp rolled up in a wool cloak, and teach my patient half-Arabian gelding to work without saddle or bridle. Wrestling a (very small) tiger and extracting a recalcitrant barn owl named Barney from under a wildlife rehabber's fridge happened to me because Mowgli and Tarzan made living in the jungle look like so much fun. Even as an adult, Pirates of the Caribbean led me to spending Halloween on a pirate ship (technically, a privateer: the Pride of Baltimore II), and taking the helm (and painting the gun doors, and checking the bilges), watched over by a young sailor woman who had walked the same planks as Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom (when she sailed on the Lady Washington, the ship Bloom and Depp, stea...er, commandeer in the first film). I hope my own stories, fiction or fact, illustrated or written, might inspire someone to have their own adventure, their own learning experience, and to reconnect with the world of wind, water, earth, and fire and other living things. That's why we're here.
What you'll find here:
Illustration in a variety of styles focusing on natural world subjects, animals, outdoor pursuits, fantasy, faerie tale, legend and myth, history, living history, and people involved in these.
Photography of animals, natural world subjects, living history (and a lot of big boats with sails and cannons). Computer generated special effects (Photoshop), sometimes combined with illustration styles.
YouTube Videos: links to that stuff I perpetrated when I discovered my camera had a video mode (how to train your sled dog, battle sails on pirate ships, kayakcam, dancing cats, and other weirdness).
Scrivenings, an ancient word for writing/storytelling. Specializing in the Young Adult (YA) fantasy genre. I'm working on: original characters and storyline in a multibook series which weaves together ancient mythic archetypes and modern kids on adventures in the natural world and sometimes in historical settings (tales of the E.L.F.). Check out the webcomic page for more. Tales of Middle Earth is my forays into the world of my favorite fantasy author: J.R.R. Tolkien. The Scrivenings page (blog) is random musings on art, nature, myth and faerie tale, Vikings, sled dogs, privateers, cats, wild horses, movies, books, or any other brain burp I may have.
Webcomic: still under construction, in my copious free time.
Adventures are pages, stories, photos, PDFs, and videos of various real-life adventures; on tall ships like the Pride of Baltimore II, Sultana, and Kalmar Nyckel... in my sea kayak... on the islands of Chincoteague (home of the only wild horse roundup in the east) and Assateague (seabirds, dolphins, endangered species, and wild horses), on the Susquehanna River, at Eastern Neck Island, the Chesapeake Bay, the Sassafras River, and other wild places.
Go have an adventure of your own!
This site has a plethora of pages. The main pages can be accessed by clicking on the menu at the top of the page. Other pages link from those like a sprawling tree, or a river system. Some pictures link to websites about the subject of the picture. Some pictures link to my photo albums, or to a larger version of the picture. Some pictures link to Secret Pages. Look for the web address in the bottom left side of the page as you slide the cursor over the picture, or just click and see what happens.
My backyard is: southcentral PA, USA, near the mighty Susquehanna River that leads down to the Chesapeake Bay, and to the barrier islands, like my favorites, Chincoteague and Assateague, of the Mid-Atlantic Coast. We are in a farming valley, rapidly being overtaken by development. We have a great park system though, gamelands and wild places not far from home, lakes and rivers to paddle, trails to hike, bike, ride and sleddog on (though we mostly use wheeled rigs, it doesn't snow much). My cats edit my stuff, my dogs drag me kicking and screaming into the winter wilds, my horse keeps me grounded in the realities of being a sooperdooperpooperscooper, and my kayak, Mak-eh-nuk's Fin, carries me on the Journey.
What you'll find here:
Illustration in a variety of styles focusing on natural world subjects, animals, outdoor pursuits, fantasy, faerie tale, legend and myth, history, living history, and people involved in these.
Photography of animals, natural world subjects, living history (and a lot of big boats with sails and cannons). Computer generated special effects (Photoshop), sometimes combined with illustration styles.
YouTube Videos: links to that stuff I perpetrated when I discovered my camera had a video mode (how to train your sled dog, battle sails on pirate ships, kayakcam, dancing cats, and other weirdness).
Scrivenings, an ancient word for writing/storytelling. Specializing in the Young Adult (YA) fantasy genre. I'm working on: original characters and storyline in a multibook series which weaves together ancient mythic archetypes and modern kids on adventures in the natural world and sometimes in historical settings (tales of the E.L.F.). Check out the webcomic page for more. Tales of Middle Earth is my forays into the world of my favorite fantasy author: J.R.R. Tolkien. The Scrivenings page (blog) is random musings on art, nature, myth and faerie tale, Vikings, sled dogs, privateers, cats, wild horses, movies, books, or any other brain burp I may have.
Webcomic: still under construction, in my copious free time.
Adventures are pages, stories, photos, PDFs, and videos of various real-life adventures; on tall ships like the Pride of Baltimore II, Sultana, and Kalmar Nyckel... in my sea kayak... on the islands of Chincoteague (home of the only wild horse roundup in the east) and Assateague (seabirds, dolphins, endangered species, and wild horses), on the Susquehanna River, at Eastern Neck Island, the Chesapeake Bay, the Sassafras River, and other wild places.
Go have an adventure of your own!
This site has a plethora of pages. The main pages can be accessed by clicking on the menu at the top of the page. Other pages link from those like a sprawling tree, or a river system. Some pictures link to websites about the subject of the picture. Some pictures link to my photo albums, or to a larger version of the picture. Some pictures link to Secret Pages. Look for the web address in the bottom left side of the page as you slide the cursor over the picture, or just click and see what happens.
My backyard is: southcentral PA, USA, near the mighty Susquehanna River that leads down to the Chesapeake Bay, and to the barrier islands, like my favorites, Chincoteague and Assateague, of the Mid-Atlantic Coast. We are in a farming valley, rapidly being overtaken by development. We have a great park system though, gamelands and wild places not far from home, lakes and rivers to paddle, trails to hike, bike, ride and sleddog on (though we mostly use wheeled rigs, it doesn't snow much). My cats edit my stuff, my dogs drag me kicking and screaming into the winter wilds, my horse keeps me grounded in the realities of being a sooperdooperpooperscooper, and my kayak, Mak-eh-nuk's Fin, carries me on the Journey.
follow us to cool adventures
(click on Nikki and B'loo)
