Succulent Plants

Recovery sketching at Succulent Plant collection. Attempted a large plant but got lot in the middle of it. 

Birds

Spend an hour at the voliere today. I have done several pages of "gestures" but it was more pages of scribbling. It was just after feeding so the toucans were very active and it was impossible to draw them properly. Here is the last page I have. I have added markers at home afterwards. I cannot do the eyes properly, leaving them mostly white or plain. It gives them a  kind of zombie stares ;=

Stuffed birds

Short session at the zoological museum. They have a huge collection of stuffed birds. Focused on doing only quick layins to do as much birds in the short amount of time (<30min). It's really too bad this museum is too far from work, would visit it more often.

Bird Skulls

The Voliere has a small bird skull collection. Very interesting to draw. Played a little bit with the markers and gel pen. Still issues with the consistency of the lighting. And I still don't understand properly the empty spaces in the skull. It's quite complex.

Succulent plants

Succulent plants again. Very relaxing to draw.  

Three birds

Sketching session at the Voliere.  Still struggling with the birds but I have some ideas what to improve for next week. These birds have a lot of personality, this is going to be a lot of fun when I can sketch them successfully..

Cyphostemma and 2 other plants

It seems monday is succulent day. Had problems to indicate the "facetting" of the euphorbia, this is something I plan to work on.  It's also difficult to find the correct balance between quality and quantity when you don't have much time to sketch.

Looking forward to sketch the very same cyphostema later this year when they will be leaves.

Black-necked Stilts

Wanted to go to the Voliere but it was closed. So I stayed out in the freezing cold.  I could only sketch Black Necked Stilts, an unknown puffy bird and a parrot (at the window). Short session. Again, the problem was the speed of the birds, always moving. But I felt more confortable than the first time.

American Succulent Plants

Found a comfortable bench in the America section of the Zurich Succulent Collection. It was much easier to have clean lines seated. (Usually I sketch standing up).  Used a Staedtler 0.7 for the outline of the Agave, it made the plant a bit too graphic for my taste.  Did a small table summarizing the difference between Aloe and Agave plants. (I thought they were the same plant haha..).

Insects

Did a page at the Luzern Natur-Museum. They have a very nice collection of insects. Much larger than in Zurich and very creatively displayed, the insects are stored in a sort of banking vault and you have to use a magnetic card to open small safes where you can see the insects. Kids love that. They had a couple of large coleoptera. Very interesting to draw because you can see a lot of details you dont usually see without magnifying glasses. They also had a very large collections of lepidoptera. Did some thumbnails, to have a better understanding of their silhouettes.

Three Birds

Went for the first time at the Mythenquai Voliere  to draw birds. It's quite small but they have beautiful birds. And was surprised to also see birds bones. Drew three birds. Did only quick layins. Will definitely comeback. Some birds move a lot. Contrary to the swans and ducks, you can see their whole body.

Aloe plants

As planned, I focused on aloe plants on today's visit at succulent plant collection. The results does not look very good but I got a better understanding of their construction. In this regard, the small aloe maculata I drew a top view of was very helpful. I could observe how the new leaves grow and take over the top position while the older leaves fell on the bottom.

Leaf studies

Went back to the Succulent collection and did a page of leaf studies. I think I have a better handle on the Aloe leaf now but it's quite a challenge for me to put accurate contour lines, the leaf is turning multiple times, the perspective is changing and the shape of the leaf itself is more complicated than it looks. I will try to do a full Aloe Plant next. But it's going to be messy ;)

It's my 19th sketch-a-day in a row. Let's see how long this streak can be ;)

Succulent Plants

Quick sketches from the wonderful succulent plant collection (link). The main problems I have with plants:

1. drawing leafs, i.e 2-d surface.  (look at the euphorbia)
2. handling plants with a lots of branches (trees i.e, but here it was the aloe eracimea)

Next time I go there, I will do more thumbnails and work on this area specifically. Here I focused too much on doing something nice to look at and didn't drew enough plants.

I definitely need to to learn a more effective way to write down the labels/titles because it's getting uglier and uglier !

Mute Swans and Coots

Quick sketching session at the lake. Drew mostly coots and mute swans. Challenging because they moved a lot and I couldn't get very close to see clearly how their head is constructed. But I find these quick swan sketches to have have more personality than the one I drew from the swan toy!

Waldmann Statue Gestures

Found this statue when in Zurich. Did quick thumbnails.

Messed up the head on the large thumbnail. Too bad, I like how I drew the horse.