Saturday, February 23, 2008

Zoo

Last weekend's expedition was to the Zoo Parc du Cap-Ferrat which is possibly the smallest & most expensive zoo in the world! We we there on an overcast chilly Sunday so there weren't too many kids & parents harassing us or the animals. The cold meant no time for messing around with watercolours, it was straight down to action with quick pen gesture sketches.

I haven't sketched at a zoo for over a year so I was feeling rusty. I warmed up on the 'easier' creatures-starting with the elegant flamingos.

The capybaras, emus & wallabies afforded some great character studies; their feeding hierarchy, the strutting emus, the horny male capybara trying to get it on!

The lemurs always look startled with their huge, black-ringed eyes. The poor ruffed lemurs were so cold they sat with their heads tucked under their legs!


The coatis lead a perilous existence living in the bear pit. There were a couple of raccoons in there too. There were two grumpy black bears who, when not growling at each other, sit up on their backsides & beg for food .

The laid back wallabies were taking it easy, grooming & scratching themselves.

The goats were fun to draw & we could get into the pen & sketch them up close. True to their reputation they try to eat anything you leave lying around including my fold-up chair, plastic bag, coat & sketchbook!



The big-cats looked pretty miserable in their relatively tiny enclosure. The cheetah tucked his paws & tail beneath his body & stayed in a corner to keep warm.

The Mandrills were challenging to draw, they move around a lot but have great expressions & they all seemed to have colds! The male I drew above had no shame!

20 comments:

Juampa said...

Your blog is simply amazing!!!!

Congratullations for your talent!

boris said...

Once again, my weekly trip to your blog fills me with happyness. Frankly, it's such a delight to spend some time here !

Richard Mitchelson said...

Great pics and insight as always, nice one.

Simon said...

Inspirational and beautiful work, Matt. Fantastic blog.

Martin Wittig said...

Wow! What a post! Great sketches:)

MikeS said...

All wonderful pages, though the lemurs are stand outs for me.

Fantastique monsieur.

Jeroen said...

beautiful as always. I Like the baboon spitting action!

andrew said...

your blog is very inspiring, the quick life drawings of both people and animals are amazing.

Kristian said...

I agree with smook the lemurs are great dabs of action. But my eye is transfixed by the tiger. this is how posts should be.

Uli Meyer said...

You're going from strenghts to strenghtier!

libra bear said...

Haven't been here in a while, I cant get enough of your range of study. you just seem to soak up everything that says art. Love the animals, love evry post.
Keep up the great work man.

Heather Dixon said...

Wow, great sketches. I especially like the goats and the tigers. Why was the zoo so small and yet so expensive?

Matt Jones said...

Cap Ferrat is probably the most desirable address on the French Riviera. The billionaire mansions probably have larger private zoos than the public one-you can walk around the perimeter fence in 4 minutes! The location is reflected in the entry price-for 15 euros you would expect to see real live dodos. I imagine there are mini-Jurassic Parks hidden behind the security gates & CCTV cams of the super rich?!

Joe Karg said...

Sick studies man. I really love the zoo too. Those tiger images are really nice the way you cleaned them up.

Great,
JOe

Gracia said...

Hello! you have a very nice blog in here!! love these animals sketches !! they are cool! nice work! :)

Drazen said...

these are wonderful!
love the lemurs!

Jeff Shelly said...

Nice work. Looks like they have more animals then the LA zoo.

Artalexis said...

good blog....very coool
visit my blog please....
http://artalexis.blogspot.com/

Matthew Cruickshank said...

These are amongst the finest animal studies I've ever seen.

Matt Jones said...

Thnx everyone!