Monday 7 February 2011

Drawing in Bristol

A sunny February day and I drove a minibus of art students to bristol Zoo to draw. Great 2 hours or so with the students trying to draw lizards, penguins and lions from life, and not from Google or from the screen of a mobile phone. Spent a great half an hour in the wonderful old Wallace aviary drawing the tropical forest birds from Papua New Guinea. the tiny little Roul Roul partridges were very inquisitive and kept climbing onto my clipboard to see what I was doing. Slightly concerned that they were trying to eat my pencil shavings. The partridges and forest pigeons all looked a lot more exotic than their UK cousins.

After the zoo we went to Bristol Museum for a quick hour to draw the stuffed animals, as they don't move around as much. A really terrific selection of UK birds although it's hard to believe that there was once a time when it was seen as appropriate to shoot and mount peregrine falcons and golden eagles. I sat and spent a happy hour drawing a grey seal skeleton, marvelling at the evolutionary developments that have shaped a mammal skeleton for life in the sea.






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