Yield a Krop.

So many online portfolios to create, so little time!

Here's one more I just did, it was easy and rather snazzy!

Turtles and frogmouths.

Animals are awesome.

They come in every possible shape, colour, texture, speed, personality.... it's an endless drawing festival waiting to happen! Which is why I love visiting the zoo. These are from my latest jaunt to the Winnipeg Zoo a few days ago. I am hoping to visit a few more times before moving, fo' sure!

This little dude of a bird was called a "tawny frogmouth". We bonded:




Jewels took a pic of me sketching the turtles:



More to come!!

San Diego Zoo sketchlings

The amount of sketches I did in comparison to the amount of animals we saw at the famed San Diego Zoo! What an amazing place, if I lived anywhere around there I would SO get an annual pass to draw it up!

I [stupidly] forgot my pencil pack back at the house when we left, so I bought a nice ol' HB San Diego zoo pencil and used that.....aaaaahhh, the quality lead that comes in those pencils, lemme tell ya.


I can't wait to spend some quality sketching time this summer at the ol' Winnipeg zoo!

Chirp, Chirp

Watercolour birdies from the Royal Winter Fair a few weeks ago....I wanna go back! Birds are fun. And even more fun when they look angry. Don't ask why, it's just one-uh-those-things.

Royal Winter Fairin'

Soooooooo this past Wednesday we did our annual visit to Toronto's Royal Winter Fair to do our day o' drawrin'! It's funny, I realized this is my fourth time comin', and it's always so interesting! Soooo many great and diverse people, funny animals...the day always flies by and I always leave wishing I could come back and continue the drawin'. However, Alysia and I had a great day with our pencils and watercolours, and here's a few from the day!

Back to drawring life....year 4!

OH golly, talk about jumping back into the deep end! First week of school, and already we have to present our story concept, homework for 2 electives and 3 hours of intense life drawing.

Hmm, perhaps I thought it was intense because I never picked up a piece of conte the entire summer. Or MAYbe I thought it was intense 'cause I was still in summer mode...

Who knows. Regardless, I thought I was gonna completely bomb and draw pure stick figures. Couple that with the pressure of handing something in at the end of class - well, I wasn't exactly looking forward to the results. But I tried to just, phew, let go, just see what happens.

Here's the highlights....not TOO bad for first week back! These are all 1 minute or 5 minute gestures. Ed was wearing a hippie costume - if ya couldn't tell from the fro wig!

Wowza, 4th year. Insane in the membrane.










Part of our sketchbook assignment this week: a page of realistic drawings from life. Fortunately I spent the weekend at Pipe Creek Farm, a beautiful B&B in Western NY, and they had many animals to draw! Although I have to say....it was reeeeeeaaaallllllly hard to draw realisticallllly. MUCH more fun to stylize!

Royal Winter Fair 2007!

This year was really great! The fair is always fun, despite the crowded crowds, freezing fingers and allergies going haywire....! I tried to approach this year with more fun, caricature stuff, trying to capture more the animal's personalities rather than just the anatomy.

BUT, it's easier said than done!! You have to really know the structure before you can properly distort it! Therefore I feel today as I always do after a day at the fair.... I wish we could have a week there! I just get warmed up [not literally however] and then it's time to go.

I do always stretch myself, learn lots, and this time, even used lotsa watercolours. Yay! Here's my highlights from today.

These guys made us laugh, they reminded me of bandits with their ill-fitting head coverings.

This farmer seriously DID have a sheep on his hat. Classic.

I barely even exaggerated these guys!

Cows are just good clean fun to draw. Hmm, maybe not clean.

I couldn't resist. I love llamas!

Winston & Co.

[From left] Biggles, Amelia [on tail], Winston, Prissy & Elvira. [She liked her grub.]

Today was Mom's birthday [she's 39....again!] and so I sat down and finally did something I have been meaning to do for a while – drew her critters all together. Drawings in place of presents work well when you're short on funds!!

It has been long overdue anyway to draw her cat [Disgruntled] Winston – his expressions alone are hilare. That one up there is his classic. My parents in the course of a few years have gone through 4 rats, all of which they loved dearly. Even the hairless one [hence, pink] in the left corner. She was slow, and in my opinion, not all there. She more often than not attempted to eat her own shavings instead of actual food.

Happy Birthday Momsy! Winston loves it, you can tell.

Watercolours on a hot day

This is a Takin. He looked lovable and goofy. And his best friend is a barrel that he pushes around all day.

We all know Llamas. Don't they just look either stoned or bratty?? Gotta love 'em.

Today's Vulture of choice was the Rueppell variety. Your standard ticked-off bird with a crazy bendy neck! Fit for drawing.

Today Tams and I headed off for a day of drawrin' at the good ol' Winnipeg Zoo. Hey, there's no orangatans, or Mr. Sub... but there are a lot of cool animals! And the gate fee is cheaper - who could ask for anything more?

It was a lovely hot and sweaty day here in the Peg, but we managed to stick around the zoo for a good 6 hours and these 3 watercolours are my favs from the day. Ahhh.... I love the tactile-ness of a paintbrush in your hands.... the sweat on your forehead [well today anyway].

Animals are so fun to draw! They don't pretend to be happy seeing you, they don't care who you are, they are just what they are. But each animal tends to have a personality right-off. These guys were fun to draw! I love da paintin'.

Next time with my paintbrush perchance I'll brave the lions, tigers and even bears!
Oh my.

Drawrings from da zoo

Finally I am getting to post a few of these drawings from the zoo a few weeks ago. Or - years ago? I don't know, this year has felt like both one loooooong day, and 8 years! Don't ask me to explain that :)

As you can see from my drawrings, I LOVED the orangutans! They were so fun to watch and draw. I could have spent all day there - and we definitely spent most of our time there. I really liked the rhino and elephant too.... maybe I'll post some sketches of those later. I can't wait to have some more time to experiment and do all these things I have been putting off 'cause of school chaos!

Anyhoo, I loved the big furry guy. He was awesome!
Animals are grand to sketch :)

In leu of today's theme o' love....

I drew a squishy bear hugging a heart pillow!
How much more mushy can ya get, People?! Oddly enough, I thought of this idea today whilst on the elliptical. Hmm.

I played around in Painter to colour him....he kinda looks like corduroy!

Just spreadin' the amoré :)

Da Big Bull

Once again, I drew this big boy at the Royal Winter Fair in Toronto. We were just walking by and they had these guys tied up. I couldn't get over how massive they were. They had a few of them in a line, I think the smallest one was over 2200 pounds or some insane thing. They're fun to draw because they are already so massive, it's not hard to charicature them. This was another super quick drawing, maybe 3-4 minutes or so, 'cause there were a lot of people around. But as I have found, it's sometimes those that turn out the best!