An Afternoon at the Zoo

8/3/15 ink

By this point in the summer, I normally would have visited Woodland Park Zoo several times, but for whatever reason, it’s been off my radar this year. I had heard that the temperature would only get up to about 80 today (instead of 90 the last couple weeks), so it was a good day to spend some quality time with animals.

Although the sketch doesn’t look like much, I was especially tickled to catch the Asian small-clawed otters all piled up in a community nap. Every other time I’ve seen them, they were chasing each other like squirrels – impossible to sketch! The two-toed sloth was another animal I’d never sketched before (my goal is to sketch every type of animal at Woodland Park at least once).

8/3/15 ink, colored pencil

Whenever I get frustrated by animals that walk off before I can finish, I take a walk through the Family Farm petting zoo, where the goats and sheep are usually lethargically chewing cud – probably the easiest of all zoo critters to sketch. And although I’ve sketched the hippo several times before, she’s impossible to resist.

8/3/15 inks

8/3/15 inks

8/3/15 inks