Just for Fun: World Oceans Day

Today is (or at this point, was) World Oceans Day so I thought it would nice to do a little ocean / sea creature themed drawing… late in the day I realized I hadn't done it yet and I kept seeing John Lechner's tweets about World Ocean Day, one after another after another (the ocean is obviously very important to John ;). They served as a reminder and I followed through for myself… for a changethe. I also watched Disney's Oceans while I was drawing… can't say I conserved much by doing that, but I raised my own awareness I guess. LOL

I like my line drawing, I'm not quite there with the watercolor yet… I mostly use it as an underpainting tool in my regular work and I think that shows here (flat!), maybe with practice…

Sketch Crawl at the Zoo

So, although I live just three blocks from the zoo, this past Saturday was only my third visit and my first time actually drawing there. I find it difficult to sketch from life because I'm either in a rush to see more, and I can't draw fast enough to capture anything -- and I'm a perfectionist, I focus on details, so it's very hard for me to draw fast and loose. When I do, I feel I'm just drawing badly, and reinforcing the experience of drawing badly by continuing the practice. But I know there is something to it, and I was happily rewarded for my efforts on Saturday.

I'm quite happy with a few of the sketches I got. I particularly like my loose expressive gorilla (although I really have no idea if it was a lady gorilla or if she was actually pregnant - it could have just been a very fat bellied gorilla!), it is just SO hard for me to work that fast and actually have it look like something. And I actually made myself pull out the watercolors as well, something I always hesitate to do while out and about - in my head, before I start it feels like so much 'work' up set up, so I usually stop myself before I begin. But this really wasn't all that bad. Very quick set up and clean up, and most time spent painting!

It was a really fun day - and bonus: it was FREE. And not just because I'm a member of the zoo - they were closing at noon for a charity gala, so they were letting everyone in for free in the morning. I was also thankful that I had the time limit (we arrived at 10am) to help focus on sketching.

Mural: Classic Pooh

These are images of a nursery mural I finished last weekend. I'm very happy with the results.
I'm usually not one to do licensed charaters, but this was a special request and I had fun with the original illustration style.

Images have also been added to my website: melindabeavers.com