Today (22 January 2010)  I decided to try out sketching in the zoo, haven’t done that for ages… or at least weeks

First few sketches I did standing in the cold wind, had a bit problems as the water froze on the paper, without drying, and mixing colors were hard as it all became ice faster than I could put the layers on the paper.

But good part was that the structure, made by the freezing water on the paper – did ad a bit of texture:

Copenhagen Zoo, Moleskine sketchbook, Frozen watercolors and ink

Did a few more sketches outside, that was total disasters, before I went inside and visited the Chimpanzees :

Sketches of Chimps

And a Kameleon – very strange creature…

Kameleon, Moleskine sketch, Watercolor and Ink - Copenhagen zoo

Last I went on to the new Foster Elephant House and sketched the elephants there:

Fast ink sketch - Moleskine

And the last sketch today:

Elephant sketch, Moleskine, Copenhagen Zoo

That was my sketches today, I am still working on the techniques, and combining and practicing the balance between walking and sketching

Black and White Sketches of stuffed birds

Did a few more sketches today  in the Zoological museum in Copenhagen.

The Zoological Museum is very quiet in the afternoon, after all the school kids have left. And I almost had the whole place to myself, with whales, snakes, turtles, dinosaurs and ice bears all around. Great place for sketching animals when it is snowing and freezing cold outside, like today.

I used most of the afternoon  studying the birds, surrounded by stuffed birds from all over the world, and with a few monitors playing short David Attenborough films for the birds.

I did around 10 sketches with ink, water and brushes.

Here are a couple of them:

a few sketches of birds

I really like owls and when I was young we actually had one of them living in our barn, and I can still remember how fascinating it was that the owl in there could fly right over my head, without making any sound and also when it turned its head all around and stir at me in the twilight with those big eyes.

Sketches of owls

Wonder where I will be sketching tomorrow…

Did a few animal sketches in ink today on a local museum, with stuffed animals. I was almost alone in there with dinosaurs, sperm whales, owls, mammoths and bears.
Great day.
Work there to practice – great to study the shapes and forms of creatures from the last 500 million years of history

Study of a standing bear

study of parrots - ink and brushes

ink and brushes - owl study

I went to the cafe’ and did a fast sketch – of this creature – I am not quite sure if it ever existed outside my head:

sketch coming out of my head over a cup of coffee in the cafe'

That is all for today – will try to put up new drawings here every day here – lets see if I can do that…

Frits

Getting ready and warming up

sketch of a rhino - watercolor

Starting up my watercolors 2010, and did the first sketches today to warm up… just a few animal studies of elephants, rhinos and Giraffes, from books, sitting inside , here are a few of them:

Condor - detail-head

giraffe studies

group of elephants

hope to get out tomorrow with my watercolors – even though it is freezing cold and snowing.

After being in the troll-forest for a few days I just did a short walk today, where I did a couple of sketches

First one is from a small moor, where there was dragonflies everywhere. I tried to work more freely with the motives, and the dragonflies moved so fast I couldn’t get the details anyway…

Fast loose sketch - Moleskine

I haven’t been on that spot since I was a kid, around 30 years ago, and it was kind of magic to go back to a place where I used to spend hours looking at Salamanders and Dragonflies

Looking at Dragonflies

Afterwards I went along the streets  to a place where the old horse carriages, that take people for rides in the woods here on Sundays, still stand.

The old drivers must have been there for countless years

The old drivers looked like they had been there for many, many years. Most of them were over seventy – or maybe eighty, and I bet most of them had past there fifty years anniversary.

Watercolor of one of the old Drivers, contemplating

The drivers were hanging out in the sun – There where five to eight of them  – all old men, sitting in their carriages waiting for customers, that never came, while discussing grandchildren and hunting dogs.

15km. of walking and a few experimental sketches in my Moleskine today

Door in one of the old industrial mills along the stream

After working with illustrations all morning, I have been twisting a bit around today,  as I tried to find my balance between watercolors, ink and pencil in my work, and also keep a rhythm between walking and painting on my hike. So on the painting part I felt challenged today.

But the walking was superb with beautiful trails along 600 years old Oak trees and a small quiet stream (Moelle-aaen – Denmark) and all the way, forest and soft, easy walking. I also came by quite a few mills today. And it kind of stroke me that when the motives are really nice and romantic, they are so much harder to do – almost like the classic trouble of painting a sunset – that is really, really difficult as it almost always ends up looking like a very poor copy of the real thing.

Here are a selection of my Moleskine sketches from today:

Two Moleskine notes about Petrov’s drawings for the Hemingway animation movie

My moleskine study of Petrov's sketches for the Hemingway film - The old man and the Sea

I stumbled across the Russian animator: Alexander Petrov and his sketches and stills for his Animated version of “The old man and the Sea” (Ernest Hemingway). The approx. 20 minutes animation film took Alexander Petrov two years (1997-1999) to make and the artwork consisted of more than 29.000  frames.  Petrov used a very time-consuming and difficult technique, where he used hand painted pastel oil paintings on glass for each frame.

study of Alexander Petrov sketches - Hemingway

Alexander Petrov won an Oscar (Academy Award for Animated Short Film) for the film in 1999 and also several other awards. And the movie is no doubt one of the most amazing piece of animation ever made by one artist.

First part – Video clip of the Alexander Petrov animation of The old man and the Sea here (google video):

Second part – Video clip of the Alexander Petrov animation of The old man and the Sea here (google video):

Today huge thunderclouds and heavy rain make me stay inside and do research on hiking and on trails. I am looking at blogs and forums to find great places for inspiration on hiking.

One of the things I am looking for are places that combines poetry, art and hiking.

And especially people putting up logbooks, watercolors or things like that.

For now here is one of my fast watercolors of a hiker:

Hiker with bagpack by HikingArtist