Unexpected Sketching

A few days ago, this nice woman was grooming her dogs right outside my office. Her dogs were beautiful. I asked if I could sketch them and she said yes! I made a friend, and she got some sketches of her dogs. Happy day. :)

Watercolor Sketchbook - Dog Park!

I wanted to spoil my dogs today so we went to the dog park!!! Unfortunately the dogs kept splashing on my sketchbook so I stopped painting and finished at home. So this isn't completely an on-the-spot painting. :)

The dog to the left is Gracie, the brown dog is my other dog Honker, and the man in white is my hubby :)

Hope you like my painting
Until next time!
Tiffanny

Watercolor Sketchbook - Gracie and Honker at Walnut Creek

LOVE MY DOGS. First nice weekend weather in a long time, HAD to go play at the best dog park in Austin!

5 Ways to Prepare for Zoo Drawing

OK, I plan on going to the zoo this weekend, weather permitting. So I've started preparing by drawing my dogs. I prepare many other ways, and I've created a list I hope you may find helpful.

1) I prepare by browsing through animal drawing books. My favorite authors for this are Joe Weatherly, Ken Hultgren and David Coleman.
2) I watch my BBCs Earth or Life DVD, and sketch some animals while they are moving. This prepares me for the zoo trip where animals wont hold still.
3) I look at my animal action figures from Schleich, I draw them in a pose that is different from how they are sculpted to prepare me for different poses a real animal will have.
4) I go to a natural history museum and draw taxidermy.
5) I draw my dog and cats. I try to draw them moving as well as relaxed.

Now that you have mentally prepared yourself with these tips, you will have a more productive trip! :)

I hate spending hours at the zoo and then ending up with crappy drawings. Best to prepare to make the most out of your admission fee! So, I hope to update with some zoo drawings by next week. I hope you will visit me again.

This is Honker, my short-haired dog. Because of this, you can really see her definition. She's perfect for anatomy study.

 This is Gracie. True to her name, she's very graceful, in movement and features. She's foxy-red and has a deer-like frame, with long thin legs.

 This is Frannie, a friend's dog. She's hard to draw! I'm so unfamiliar with her.

Gesture Drawings of Gracie and Honker

Well, the figure drawing session was canceled yesterday for some reason, so I decided to draw my dogs.
This is my dog Honker sleeping. She's compact and muscular which makes her great for anatomy studies. About Honker; Honker doesn't understand ownership and playing with toys. She much prefers fishing and hunting outside. She has caught squirrels, rabbits, and fish. We didn't teach her that, but I think since her previous owners neglected her she just learned to hunt to stay alive. She is an expert at catching grasshoppers out of the air. As a result, when we toss popcorn in the air for her she catches them with ease. Anyway, the problem with dogs is that they get uneasy being stared at, so she crawled into her crate after these few drawings...

These next ones are of Gracie. She doesn't like being stared at either, so she's always rotating, always facing away from me. Luckily I got a few good ones. While Honker is squat and muscular, Gracie is built more like a ballet dancer. She's long and lean but also strong. She's undefeated at Tug-of-war vs other dogs despite her tiny frame. She isn't a hunter like Honker but plays non-stop. The only thing she has "hunted" was a turtle, whom she brought back to us alive and well. We put him back in the lake. Unlike Honker, Gracie can't catch for shit. We throw popcorn at her and she kind of braces herself for impact, then eats it off the floor.

I love my two dogs!
Tiffanny

Watercolor - Walnut Creek, En Plein Air

I love this park. It's a leash-free dog park. People that go here are people who love dogs, so they're perfectly understanding when your dogs run up to say hello. In fact they love it. They don't freak out. I had so much fun bringing my two dogs Gracie (next to the man in red, my husband), Honker, the one in the foreground. And Frannie (middleground dog) came with her owner too!
Plein air painting is fun, but even more so when you can bring your dog :)

Tiffanny