Fundraising Paintmonkey Style!

I've been asked to participate in Fernbank Museum's silent auction again this year for the annual Lost Oasis.  I kind of knew what I wanted to do but last night I hit upon the right idea and stayed up until 2:30 for this:

I will be posting more on the Paintmonkey Facebook page as it gets closer to completion.

Then a few weeks ago as the missus and I were planning a trip down to Zoo Atlanta, I noticed on the zoo's website a call for artists to participate in a plein air event called Art Gone Wild.  I've been wanting to paint at the zoo for awhile so this was perfect.  I applied, got accepted, and went down a week or so ago for what they called the "Find Your Muse" day.  The artists sketched and started getting the feel of the zoo.

Here's a few of mine...

Now unfortunately both of the events and silent auctions are on the same night (June 14th), but if you want to help out some very important institutions in Atlanta...just pick one and go!  You can't go wrong!

Zoo Sketching

So the wife and I went to the zoo for our anniversary on Friday. I wanted to flex my on the spot sketching muscles a little so instead of a camera I took the trusty Moleskine, a pencil and some Copic pens. Here are the results.

Giraffes wiggle a lot more than you would think. Very hard to try and get the patterning down before they move away.

That lion is just like a big house cat. I picked this pose and the minute I started sketching he rolled over onto his back. Jerk.

I have done many sketches of Kelly for a children's book. I love drawing elephants.

I was drawing the cassowary and it kept coming to the fence right in front of me where it would just stop and stare. Creeped me the hell out. Stupid dinosaur...

And this guy was my best model. He just sat his vulture tail on the faux zebra corpse for about 10 minutes while I sketched away to my heart's content.

There may be news of zoo painting coming in the near future. Stay tuned and I'll let you know when I know.