Oakland Zoo

Another zoo trip yesterday for some more reference photos for the next Dreamscapes book. I'm having fun visiting all these zoos and aquariums for this. Oakland Zoo is a lot smaller than San Francisco's, but there they made very good use of what space they have, as well as using the hilly terrain for long meandering paths.

I went with my childhood friend and sketch partner Rubbi and we had a wonderful time making our way through slowly and stopping periodically to sketch.

"Bison cave drawings," due to my poor eyesight and the distance.

Weaver bird nests! Reminded me of "Where the Wild Things Are" which I just saw recently.

Dana thinks this one should be called "Tortoise Descending a Staircase" since it was almost Cubist in its creation! The tortoise sloooooowly walked along the edge of the grass, and it proceeded at a pace that gave me time to sketch it at each point of its progression.

yikes:

SF Zoo

It has been far too long since I have been able to do some sketches on the move. In preparation for the next Dreamscapes book I went to the San Francisco Zoo last week, armed with camera and sketchbook, to gather a lot of reference material. I brought my little travel sketchbook where I like to do on site ink drawings. It's always a relaxing pleasure to do these.

As opposed to sketches that I do with the intent for finished paintings, these are more like gesture drawings. I don't use pencil at all (though I've taken a liking lately to doing a light scribble with a pale grey brush pen, and also for shadows), just straight to the page with pen. Not being able to erase forces you to commit to the lines, and really try to make each mark matter.

Some neat flowers:

Also, a very lovely portrait drawing (from one of my photos) from Kyra Kramer, age 6. (Thank you Kyra, I'm honored!!!)