Sketching at the zoo.

The Contemporary Animation Society (of which I am the treasurer) took a trip down to the Jacksonville Zoo today.  Thirty-three of us (including Professor Jacques Khouri and Professor Phil Young and his wife) piled into a few cars and headed down to Florida.  It was a beautiful day; the sun was shining and the sky was an amazing shade of blue.  After two hours of napping in the car, we arrived.  Sketchbooks and cameras in hand, we invaded the zoo.

The animals must have know what we were up to, since many of them obligingly stayed in one position for a minute or two so we could capture a quick gesture sketch or two before they started moving around.  One of the giraffes had to have been standing in the exact same position for at least ten minutes.  I must say, however, that the otters weren’t so willing to hold still.  I was barely able to catch one in a photograph, let alone with my pencil.  My favorite sketch of the day had to be one I did of an African Bullfrog.  If you do not know what one of those looks like, I encourage you to look it up.  They look like globs of green mud with eyes.  Apparently, they are cannibalistic, too.  (Thankfully, there was only one to a tank.)  Some of my favorite photos were of the giraffes and some of the colorful birds that are scattered throughout the zoo.

Although the trip was fun (I had a blast), we didn’t go to the zoo just to get away from Savannah for a while or to take pretty pictures (although I did get some really nice ones).  We went to try our hands at capturing animals in motion.  Gesture drawings are important tools for figuring out how animals are put together and how they move.  It is not easy to draw an animal in only a few seconds or minutes, but it is good practice.  The zoo is also an excellent place to go to draw from life, which is much better than drawing from a photo (even though sometimes you need to if you can’t get down to a zoo).  It is a good place to go to do studies of people, too.  The zoo is a crowded place on a beautiful Saturday in April, so there are plenty of free models to draw.  Animation is all about motion, and gesture sketches of people or animals are very helpful in learning how to draw things in motion.  Gesture drawings help with figuring out proportion, perspective, foreshortening, etc., as well as helping to get you to draw faster.  And, the best part is that they don’t have to look perfect.  They are just sketches, they won’t end up as a final product, so there is no need to be self conscious about them.  You can just let loose and draw a monkey.

I am very much looking forward to next year’s trip, and if anyone is looking for a good place to go on vacation, I recommend making a stop in Jacksonville to check out the zoo.