Early 2017 Sketching

Catching the San Diego SketchCrawlers and Urban Sketchers when I get a chance!

Arboretum in Balboa Park and a Lady Slipper Orchid from inside the arboretum.

Here is another Balboa Park sketch from a lovely early spring day.

 I love the San Diego Zoo but the SketchCrawlers were rained out the first 2 months this year. Boo hoo! A quick sketch of Satu the Orangutan leaning up against the glass.

These are detail sketches of a tree near the Sabertooth Grill. The pink flower clusters were about 6 or 7 inches wide. It looked very cool.

Sketches from Urban Sketchers meetings.

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Go make art!

Sketches 2016

I found some sketches I forgot to put into the last post. Then there are a bunch more that I have done this year.

I managed to make it to a lot of our First Friday Spanish Village Extra Credit sketchcrawls. This is a banana plant in one of the side areas of Spanish Village.

When I need something quick, I often do some of the blue pots that are outside of several of the studios.

Last March we celebrated Pi Day (3.1416) with what else but Pie? It was also the 7th Anniversary of the Scetchcrawlers group. My 5th Anniversary of sketching with the group.

I couldn't stay the whole time one day, so I just sketched some pods. I think they are from the Jacaranda trees.

One day last spring a few of us die-hard sketchers met in spite of the rain and sketched from under the gazebo.

Here are some plants and cactus outside of one of the studios.

I don't seem to have many sketches from the zoo this year - I didn't manage to go as often as I like, and wasn't sketching much I guess. This is Otis, who was at the Hippo exhibit one day when I was there. He was just chillin' with his back to everyone. I love his cute pink ears.

Even though this is the Bell Tower and Museum of Man, I made the sketch from one of the picnic areas of the Zoo.

This is a flower from one of the Sausage trees in the Childrens' Zoo area. After I did the sketch I realized that the flower is upside down from its orientation when it's on the tree - I had picked it up off the ground to sketch more conveniently.

And I did make it to the Wild Animal Park Safari Park in the spring. Don't get me started on what I think of how they are [poorly] managing the crowds for the tram and butterflies. Grrr!

 I did manage to go to a few other sketching. This is in the cactus garden across Park Blvd. from the main park.

And this is from the Old Cactus Garden that is behind the Balboa Park Club and Puppet Theater.

If you ever get a chance to go to the Queen Calafia Magic Circle at Kit Carson Park in Poway, do it! It is fantastic! There are so many kinds of wonderful, magical statues. Everything is covered in mosaics of pebbles, glass beads, and semi-precious stones. I did this with just watercolor.

I was lucky to be able to go to PyCon 2016 in May/June in Portland Oregon. I had a wonderful time, learned so much! I didn't have much time to sketch, but took a few minutes from a lunch hour to make this very quick sketch of a Japanese bell outside the convention center. I really enjoyed Portland and am looking forward to going there again in May 2017.

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Go make art!

Zoo sketches

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!