Ahoy, Mom! Flamingos!

I finished up work early today and stopped to sketch at the Como Zoo for an hour on my way home. I was extremely fortunate, since I think it was the first day that the flamingos were out. Even better, I got to watch the zoo keepers and I presume some volunteers release the flamingos. My pictures weren't great, but here is the best one.

Not long after all of the flamingos had settled into the water, I heard a boy yell, excitedly, "Ahoy, Mom!  Flamingos!".

While I was at the zoo, I worked on some gesture sketches and some contour sketches. If the bird or animal would stay mostly still, I also added some details. I would like to be more disciplined and do smaller gesture sketches, but they seem to end up pretty large. I did about 5 pages of sketches. Most were fast and rough.

When I first started doing quick sketches of the flamingos, they looked more like swans or geese. It took a bit to really see the odd "S" curve in a flamingo's neck. There's a lot of variability, but it's always there unless they are stretching their heads up as tall as possible.

I tried some rough sketches of ducks.

I was grateful for the duck that was sleeping. I wish I could have sighted him from a different angle. 

Lastly, I hung out with the two sea lions for a bit. They are really amazing. It's fun to try and do gesture sketches.  Several times when I've sketched them, they will do the most interesting poses with their necks and heads. I'm not sure how to capture the solidity of the bottom 2/3's of their bodies versus the fluidity and lightness of the top 1/3. I try not to get stuck on this. I figure if I'm noticing this, I'll eventually figure out a way to capture it.

All and all, it was an enjoyable hour spent at the zoo on an absolutely beautiful Tuesday afternoon.