Illustration Friday - "Zodiac"

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Art Day!

Painted with my best painting buddy Jay today. We decided to paint the dreaded pineapple, our nemesis, because we had such a hard time painting it in the past. This is my first watercolor of a pineapple. My first attempt a long time ago was actually in oils.

Why does the pineapple look like it's rotting? Because it was! It's a week old. It smelled nice while we were painting it though because it was overripe. The painting is a bit sloppy - I was sleepy-painting it because I woke up super early to go to the zoo and draw animals. I think it turned out ok enough to post though. Here are my zoo drawings:

and BEFORE the zoo, I sketched outside of a coffee shop where there was this super cute puppy cocker spaniel:

I hope you had your own good day!
Tiff

Austin Zoo

Went to the Austin Zoo today! They had moved the foxes to a bigger enclosure, and they were SOOO happy. They were bouncing around, jumping on their houses. They were SO curious, they LOVED watching people. They looked like they were enjoying watching the people as much we enjoyed watching them. They are so beautiful, not just physically, but in their behavior. It's physically impossible to not smile when you are with a fox.

Check out this lazy guy. Someday, I want to slow myself down, find a tree, and sleep underneath it. I now work really close to the Capitol, and the grounds there are always perfect and peaceful. Maybe one day at lunch, instead of eating at my desk or going to the gym, I'll take a blanket to the capitol, lay on the grass and find shapes of things in the clouds. I will tell myself that I don't have any worries, because I'm not a person, but a nice fat lazy piggy and my purpose in life is nothing but to sleep in the dappled light.

Until later, Tiff

Zoo Sketching!

Hello readers, it's been a while. I've been pretty busy with work. Please forgive me and continue visiting! Here's some sketches from my zoo trip!

Little kids are great when the sketching is good. This little boy was pleading his mom to look at my sketchbook, but I think she wanted to give me privacy. I volunteered and she seemed genuinely impressed. That feels good.

 Crowds of people block the view sometimes, but that shouldn't stop the flow of ink.

A girl doesn't often get to ride a lion... Here's a picture of me at the entrance of the San Antonio Zoo.

Until next time!
Tiff

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.