A Frog and a Gecko Walk into a ...

Still confident from my recent victory over my inner critic, aka Ichabod, while drawing an iguana at a pet store, I headed into the local college's zoo to do today's scribbling.  I took only by Strathmore mixed media 500 journal and a Uniball Vision black pen (cheap and waterproof!).

There, a man there with two little girls huddled over some of the animals.  A lovely scene.  I quickly started to draw them and then, they left. 

So I moved on to an animal less likely to leave.

Sobering discovery:  the wonderful huge fat frogs I sketched a week or so ago were gone.  I was hoping to draw them again, to sort of compare my growth, but no--they were dissected last week in a lab.  

You never know what you're going to run into (or not run into) when you sketch out in the real world!

So, I drew another frog (this is page 1 on the left).   She was a lovely aqua blue color, and parts of here were electric red/orange because of reflection from her heat lamp.  She was also hanging from the CORNER of her glass terrarium--with two legs on one wall and two on the other.  At first I thought, oh, no way can I draw that.  The Voice of Ichabod!  So, I grabbed a chair, because Ichabod's protestations against any subject mean I'm totally going to draw that.  It took me quite a while of measuring checking, and being sure I was drawing what I saw and not what I thought I saw, because of her her odd angle and the clear walls.  During this sketch, attention to negative space was hugely helpful to me.  I think I got her feet right, so you can kind of see her angle, but I was stumped--STUMPED-- about how to indicate those glass walls.  So I didn't try.  

I had more time, so I found the leopard gecko having a nap (page 2 above).  What an odd looking creature, with heart-shaped head and big bulbous tail!  I did a lot of slow measuring and plumblines again.   Attention to the pattern on the gecko helped me show how its body moved.

I enjoyed scribbling only in black and white today.  I took on something I had no idea how to do (a frog hanging in the corner of a glass box).
Truth be told:  I'd never even noticed a frog hanging in the corner of a glass box before.  So, my word is richer today, regardless.

This post comes from work I did in a class with Roz Stendahl, Drawing Practice:  Drawing Live Subjects in Public.  I recommend it!