Sketches from San Francisco

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I went to San Francisco for a few days, accompanying my boyfriend for the AGU conference. We stayed at the "Queen Anne" hotel in Japantown. The Queen Anne used to be a school for girls. It was very adorably decorated with Christmas gear. I drew some of the fancy pieces of furniture.

We also went to the Academy of Sciences museum, ergo the wild dog, toad, ibex and the stingray.

Sketches from TV and Movies

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Sketches from watching TV. The line-up from the last few weeks included:

-Arrested Development. (I'm in love with Jason Bateman!!!!)
-The Sting
-Sense and Sensibility
-The Princess Bride ("Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.")
-The Office (UK Version)
-Anastasia
-Planet of the Apes

Oh, and the bottom is just kind of tacked on ... those are sketches from books. They are related in the sense that they were done with the tv on.

Oh, and the zebra that looks like a mouse ... I just threw that in because I liked him. ^__^

Stripes - scene 1 sketches

Here are some sketches I did while working on the animatic for scene 1 of the Stripes story. This is a very biased sample. I did many times this many drawings, and most of them were pretty bad!

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More Zoo Sketches

Some birds:

Some ungulates:

Some invertebrates:

Komodo Dragon:

Ocelot

An ocelot.

Blue-Footed Booby

Quick paint to test out Painter 11 on my new Macbook pro (!).

Pen Sketches at the Zoo

Grevy's zebra and asian elephant

Peccaries (and a mischievous squirrel who tried to raid my bag while I was watching the peccaries)

Clouded leopards 1

Clouded leopards 2

I went to the zoo the other day to get some exercise and drew these sketches. Last time I did this, I found it really helpful to stick to one animal for at least a half hour or hour and really work at it until I felt comfortable drawing it's form. But this time, I did my usual thing of moving from animal to animal fairly quickly.

Gorillas at the National Zoo

The National Zoo has a really nice Great Apes section. The walls are glass so you can go right up and sit next to the gorillas. I don't know if they care for it though ... Anyway, there's a baby there! It's so cute! You can usually tell if it's visible because there's always a big crowd standing wherever it is.

Pen, Ink and Watercolor

A few days ago I went to the Pearl Art Store located near Canal Street in Manhattan. It's the biggest art store I know of - five floors of pure joy.

I picked up a new watercolor set, some Sakura pens and some watercolor paper. It's been a long time since I've painted anything outside the computer. Here are the results from yesterday:



And then today:



Both these are up for sale if you are interested. Just drop me a line at larkinheather@gmail.com

Drawing Jaguars

Source:

Google search for "Jaguars." The last page only has original drawings.

Lessons Learned:

-It's really good to pay attention to what kind of spots go where. On the head, there are small spots general, with some big ones on the cheeks. Around the chest and inside front legs, there are spots big and small, as well as stripes. Starting around the shoulder are the small rosettes, continuing into the BIG rosettes around the stomach. Around the lower hind legs are the stomata shaped rosettes. And the tail descends back into small groups of dots. There's so many varieties! I especially like the shape of the BIG rosettes.

- Those spots can really define give shape to a surface if manipulated to fit the perspective properly. If most of the spots are round, then bunching them and turning them more oval in one direction can give the impression of a curved surface.

-Putting the hind legs of cats is a bit tricky, I find. I think I have a tendency to flatten them, but really, they are very muscular and should bulge appropriately.

-The flabby bits around the belly and elbows of the front legs are interesting. There are no real harsh endings and beginnings where the limbs meet the body. There are always fleshy bits that scrunch up and form folds.

-Finally, I don't know if anyone else does this, but when drawing a carnivore yawning/roaring, I sometimes don't draw the far cheek because I imagine you wouldn't be able to see it (see third page down). But really, it should be there. Unless the animal is really profile, like the one on the 4th page down. It just looks so much better when I added that. I'll have to remember that.