A Sketchy Day

My painting buddies and I wanted to do some serious painting in Bastrop today but the weather was not cooperating, so we sat outside of a restaurant, ordered some junk food (fries, onion rings, ice cream) and sketched away while it rained off and on.

On the way home, we made a quick pit stop at the zoo. We didn't stay long, just long enough to get a few pages of animals sketches.

And that's all for now!
Tiffanny

Artist Death Grip + San Antonio Wildlife Ranch + Figure Drawing Practice

Why take the time to draw from life when there's a billion photographs of animals and people? The main reason is that cameras flatten and distort pictures. It's impossible to see dimensionality with just one lens. You need two eyes to see depth. Your understanding of the forms are truly better when you draw from life. This comes in handy when you're doing actual animal design from imagination, which I do quite a bit at work. It's so freakin' hard though, the animals sure love to move.

showed my boss my drawings, and he said I was "bold" drawing with a pen. If only he knew, I'm a scared little girl when I draw, especially in public. But I overcome as best as I can. I don't doubt that my public audience understands the difficulty, so I really shouldn't be scared. My main audience are usually kids going "WOW SHES DRAWING THE __insert animal name here___", and let me tell you, children are brutally honest. They will tell you if you've failed.

 I got to practice my Artist Death Grip today.

target acquired....

 approaching target...

DEATHGRIP!!!!! target eliminated. I killed the poor llama.

Now me and the sheep can run away together, without pesky llama in the way. dude look at my boney ass chest. when did that happen. probably the other day when i turned into an old hag. (34th birthday)

ok here are some figure drawings from last week:

I guess that's about it.

A dump of sketches

I have been practicing!
7-15 minute sketches:

1 minute sketches:

and from the zoo:

Sketchbook - Capital of Texas Zoo

Living in the country, there are not many places I can go to conveniently. No grocery store closeby, no mall, no restaurants. What IS conveniently close to me though is the Capital of Texas Zoo. Thank heavens I don't have to travel very far to study and draw animals. Because it's close, I don't feel compelled to spend all day there to make the trip worth while. Zoo drawing can be exhausting, with the heat, crowds, and the general humbling experience of drawing animals. These sketches are the result of a modest 3 hour visit to the zoo.

the ring tailed lemurs were too fast. A great exercise in gesture.

There was a kid at the zoo rapping his ABCs at some birds next to the lion's cage. The lion's face looked like he was really annoyed. The kid was hilarious. He was acting like he was the ultimate bad-ass because he can rap his ABCs.

Until next time,
Tiffanny