I love the San Diego Zoo and try to go sketch there now and then - uasually after a Balboa Park sketchcrawl meeting. When I published my last post, I realized I hadn't put any zoo pictures up.
This is Janey, one of the Orangutans at the zoo. She likes to be up near the glass and sometimes will interact with the people watching. Although I stretched out her face too much, I think I captured a bit of her expression.
This is from a seed pod at the zoo - I don't know what kind of tree it came from. There were lots and lots of seeds in the pod and it was quite interesting. I named it the "Sumkinda Pod" in honor of our sketching friend Nikki who is really good at making quick sketches of birds and flowers and giving them funny names.
I always make sure I stop by the flamingoes. It's hard to get a good flamingo color with the toned paper, although probably someone with more experience would have no problem. They seem extra bright this year.
We were by the gorilla exhibit, but there were too many people to even see the gorillas, but I noticed this shoot of giant bamboo (this much of it was probably more than a foot long).
Another time I was at the orangutan exhibit and there were too many people to see much, because the orangutans were quite active. This, of course makes it harder to sketch them, as I am not too swift with the sketching. So, here is a sketch of a tree stump, where I didn't have to worry about it moving to a new position, haha.
The Scripps Aviary is one of my favorite places to watch the birds. When I was there in January, I noticed a bunch of Clivia buds and sketched them.
Today I went to the Galapagos Tortoise exhibit and this guy, Abbott, was in a nice pose but not moving, so I managed a sketch and then added watercolor later. I need to go back and fix the greys, it was hard to tell how much color was there as the toned paper darkened where it was wet, so now it looks a little strange. Also, the dark lines are from an Elegant Writer pen, which is water-soluble and adds the blueness to some areas. It's not very done; perhaps I'll work on it and post it again later.
Thanks for looking at my sketches!
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Go make art!
