Liz, the Cheetah

6/4/14 Diamine Chocolate Brown ink, Sailor pen,
Canson XL 140 lb. paper

Two cheetahs are new to Woodland Park Zoo, but they certainly aren’t spring chickens. In fact, the 14-year-old females are both middle-aged empty-nesters (they’ve had 15 cubs between them). They’re not sisters or even friends; though they aren’t tooth-and-claw as they were when they were first brought to the zoo from Oregon’s Wildlife Safari, they now tolerate each other well enough to share living quarters.

I followed the cheetah-shaped footprints through the zoo to find them, and luckily for me, Liz was dozing close enough to the fence that I could get a good view. Given that cheetahs nap 20 hours a day, they make relatively easy sketching subjects.

On my way out of the zoo, I got a quick color fix at the Chilean flamingo pond, where I made studies of three poses. The young one is the one that looks like its legs are bent the wrong way.

6/4/14 Platinum Carbon, Diamine Grey and Diamine Brown inks, Pitt Artits pen, watercolor