Sketching at the zoo

I’m back from my spring break! During my vacation I visited a small zoo – I had planned to do some live drawing, but due to the weather it fell through, I only managed to get some rainy photos. But it was nice to sit down over the next days and recollect.

I ended up drawing a page of animal studies – gannets, polar bears and penguins. I hadn’t seen any of those species live before – only on TV. It’s fascinating to watch big predators like polar bears up close, although I’m not a big fan of the small enclosures they’re kept in in zoos – no matter how big, from my understanding they seem too small for these animals who often have huge territories in their wild habitats. But I suppose soon zoos and wildlife preserves might be the only places where some of our wildlife will be able to survive.

And still, from an artist’s point of view, it’s amazing to be able to study live animals, their movements, their posture, their interactions. It’s a wonderful chance to do some live sketching of mammals, or of birds, that I wouldn’t be able to observe otherwise. So I’m always a bit torn when I visit zoos.

Anyway, I did a bit of pencil sketching while I was traveling, and finished my sketches with watercolor later. I often work like this – sketches first, color later. I noticed that after each time I go through the material of my Sketching Fundamentals course together with the students and practice seeing basic shapes, I get better at sketching even the kind of animals I’m not familiar with – like those polar bears with their rectangular heads and their massive bodies. So that kind of practice really pays off for me too! It was also really fun to study birds that are looking different than my local song birds. I love the blue bills of the gannets, and their awesome eyeliner.

For adding color to the polar bears, I used a mix of yellow ochre and Jaune brilliant – a very light, opaque yellow that has white in it (can also be easily mixed from yellow and white). It almost feels like gouache when painting, you can use it light on dark. I really enjoy layering with it.

My gel pen also came in handy in a few places. When you don’t have the best brushes with you a fine tipped gel pen is really nice to have. I used it around the eyes of the gannets and penguins, and for the highlights around the bear limbs. I really love the black and white patterns of sea birds, and I will miss the calls of the seagulls!