Simple Materials at the Zoo

 

8/18/23 Rhino, Woodland Park Zoo

For visits to the Woodland Park Zoo, a simple color palette of brown and gray usually covers most animals (I also always bring pink, just in case I want to sketch flamingoes). On this trip, the zoo was mobbed with young, fast-moving kids. I had to sketch even faster than my usual fast pace, so I kept it even simpler: One Blackwing graphite pencil and a white Uglybook (yes, in addition to all those colors, Uglybook does make a plain white sketchbook, too).

Humboldt penguins

It was a good test to see how little I could draw and still capture the essence of an animal, like only the eyes and snouts of Water Lily and Guadalupe, a pair of submerged hippos (below).

Hippos