G is for Giraffe

I've always loved giraffes with their long bandy legs and necks like periscopes. If you're going to live in the wilds of Africa and are not top of the food chain, I guess being a giraffe is probably your best bet. Although lions like a bit of best end of neck for their Sunday dinner, I'll put my money on old long legs putting up a good fight and flight.

It's also to their advantage that they are without the sought after tusks, horns and skins that put their fellow savanna-dwellers on the endangered list which is truly something to be grateful for.

I don't paint enough animals. I feel a shift coming on... Much as I have enjoyed the poppies, the plains of the Kalahari are calling!

This long-limbed fella is trying his best to blend into his surroundings. He swears he saw Larry the Lion lurking - and he had a napkin tied around his neck...

Lessons from long necks

Remember last Sunday when I pulled on my white coat and stepped into the drawing lab? Well, I did say that Giraffes were next and sure enough, these long necks have been receiving some special attention from yours truly.

I took small boy to the library yesterday and we came home armed with tales of Mr Pusskins, spacemen and athletic cats as well as a sneaky collection of mammal texts. I'm intermingling the nature lessons with the fiction so sneakily that he'll never realise he's being 'taught'.

Today we both learned that Orangutans make two nests every day - one at night and the other to just sit in during the day while they digest their lunch. But as usual I digress we're here to talk about giraffes.

I was practising a technique where the artist is not allowed to look at the paper - merely the subject. It was harder than you might think. Not so much the drawing part (though that was of course tricky). No, it was the 'not looking at the paper' bit that caused the greatest hardship. Try it and see!

I do however present my best efforts. I was allowed a quick peek for repositioning the pen for internal features - which is the only reason the eyes are not half way down the legs - but other than that I was a good girl and managed to refrain from looking.

I recommend the technique. If nothing else, that constant staring at these beautiful creatures teaches you so much about them - the tiny nuances you normally miss like the wrinkles around the eyes and neck, the fluffy horns and the incredibly nobbly knees! Drawing animals is definitely outside my comfort zone too, but has really tested my observation skills.

I became so enthralled that I then tried a proper sketch too and then decided my long necks needed a splash of colour so, in a further step outside of the 'zone', I experimented with some mono printing. Dabbing some savannah colours on acetate, I then placed it over my sketches and brayered. Had to go over the lines again but quite liked the result.

These 'lab experiments' are becoming my regular Sunday habit thanks to Sophie's prompt for Sunday Sketches. Why not join us. No theme - just draw!

I finish with a moment of serendipity. I have no idea which keys I accidentally pressed to cause this colour inversion in Photoshop, but boy was I happy with the result. Cool eh?