It was the first time I have ever tried to draw a live animal. And definitely the first time I gave myself the task of completing each drawing in under 60 seconds. But the time limit was a blessing and I quickly became unattached, ready to flip the page and start another one...
The best moment was when I was quietly contemplating the warthog and two other women came up to the railing next to me. I looked over and they each also had their own notebooks and were walking around drawing all the animals!
My worst drawings I cannot show here. Not yet anyway. But I did notice that every time I perceived that someone was watching me, that particular drawing was not successful... and the two times when someone would actually stand over my shoulder and hold up their child and comment about what I was doing, well those drawings were not finished -I just had to smile and move on to the next area.
I feel extra motivated to go back and try this experiment again. I noticed so many things I had never seen before, even in animals I thought I knew exceptionally well! It was quite an exciting time. And much much easier than trying to draw people. Animals just do their thing, sometimes quickly (like the anteater, wow, that was a five second drawing) or slowly (like the polar bears and wallaroos). I walked away from each animal a little surprised at what I knew about them.
It was very very fun!
(the extraneous lines are from scanning the images...)
