Life Drawing - The Zoo

I've been looking forward to the zoo trip all semester - turns out it was a bit of a disappointment. First of all, it was really cold!!! So most of the animals were inside, and it was crazy getting from one pavilion to the next - from a tropical rainforest, where your large coat is killing you, to suddenly having your sweat freeze to your body outside.

Next, we really didn't have enough time! The mandate was to draw 2 studies, and 12 gestures. I've never been to the Toronto Zoo before, and it's HUGE! It takes a really long time just to get from one place to another, and you never know if the animals on the map will be there, or if they will be close enough for you to draw... So in the end we had something like 2.5hours to finish everything.

Even so, I tried watercolor! The comments I got from my professor was that my studies were too "doughy". Therefore, when I got home, I decided to touch them up with dip pen and ink. I think the result is nice, and I might try this mixed technique for my next animal life studies.

So, these are the animals I found by chance!

Tigers:

Lemurs:

A Chameleon:

Some random birds, turtles and meercat babies:

And finaly, my favorite, this epic beast, called a Red River Hog!