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| 9/3/26 Woodland Park Zoo's Butterfly Garden |
On the last week before the Butterfly Garden was to close for the season, the Woodland Park Zoo gave members the offer of free admission (usually $3). The only time I’d sketched live butterflies was 11 years ago at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco. Remembering that butterflies had been difficult to sketch, I’d never been inside Woodland Park’s exhibit, but who am I to decline a free ticket? I was delightfully surprised to be wrong: Many of the butterflies quietly sat for minutes on end on flowers or, strangely, information placards. They were relatively easy to sketch compared to continually moving animals.
Species identification photos made it easy to label them as I sketched. Noticing how many butterflies were mostly black, I wished I had a black sketchbook with me. I managed to color the Atala and Eastern black swallowtail with a brush pen, but they would have been easier using colored pencils on black paper.
The most challenging part? Trying to draw foreshortened butterfly
wings in perspective!
Palm cockatoo in the Conservation Aviary
After spending an enjoyable hour in the Butterfly Garden, I needed to hoof it through the zoo to give myself “credit” for fitness walking and not just sketching. I got almost all the way back around, resisting more sketches, until I got to the Conservation Aviary, which is full of exotic (and sadly endangered) birds. I caught a quick gesture of the palm cockatoo before heading for the exit.
(See my Instagram post for a butterfly video.)
How great that the butterflies remained in one place for so long. I do remember being in the butterfly garden at the Riverhead Aquarium and being surprised that they stayed put for as long as they did. I didn't stop to see them until right before I was leaving so I didn't get to sketch any. I'll have to remember to do that the next time I go.
ReplyDeleteIt is kind of surprising how long they sit, but maybe they know they have no predators in that protected space.
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