"Lynn's Zoo from Sketchbook Skool Assignments" by Lynn Cohen

 Our teacher this week was Roz Stendhal. She is the master of drawing animals. She wanted us to draw live, but we had other options too like this one from a photo of a rooster I got from Paint My Photo link on our side bar at Paper, Paint, Pencils & Pens.

These are attempts to capture Henry V live on paper via gesture and contour drawings.

I drew Henry curled up on a quilt I'd made in 2007, the year I started my art odyssey.  I think he looks sad. This was either the day I knew my aunt was dying and we were waiting or maybe it was the day we heard. My dear aunt Mimi died on her 95th birthday on May 2nd. She was a wonderful woman, of great inner and outer beauty, smart enough to know a good business venture when it fell in her lap in her early 20's when she married my uncle Harry and they opened a camera shop in Stockton, CA. That business ran by both of them and later their son for a total of  61 years! Mimi was remembered by the town, their friends and our family on May 7, in Stockton, CA a in memorial celebration of her life. She was my late mother's little sister.

"Happy Birthday Mimi" is all you need to say to me. Thank you!

More contour cats ....

and Henry enjoying being petted by his dad!

We were also suggested to draw just a part of an animal and leave a lot of negative space like I did here:

I loved drawing "Sir William", Ann Hyde's wonderful dog who lives in the UK from her photo with her permission.

I tend to neglect our house when I am drawing so much; so I took a break to swift away the dust bunnies before getting back to the importance of drawing!

We were also encouraged to draw animals from toys. My husband had this plastic buffalo up on the window sill in our bathroom. I borrowed him to draw and paint. The bird just flew in the window. They are forever hopping rides on the backs of buffalo in real life, I know as I've seen them in Yellowstone and Custer State Park in South Dakota.

This Henry portrait is from a photo and was done in parts as you can see below, another suggestion from Roz.

Roz also did a super job painting a bird from life in a video she made for the class. I drew from her video.

You might recognize this buffalo, as I've drawn him before, but this time I used a combo of tools you see listed on the art journal page below:

And finally one more life drawing of Henry drawn in the semi light of our garage as he slept, woke and slept again.

I'm always surprised of late when I gather my drawings of the past week and see how many I have done. I love the progress I am making.

If you think you'd like to sit at the feet of some wonderful teachers, check out Sketchbook Skool. It is so worth the cost. I wonder if you can see my growing as an artist at all here? I sure feel more confident and love what I am turning out.

Hi to all my friends from Paint Party Friday! I so appreciate your visits and comments.

Hi to all my friends from Paper, Paint, Pencils & Pens. You have to look at the same art all over again here, but hopefully it's fun a second time around. Thanks for stopping by too.

I invite you all to visit the other artists in these two spots via the icons on my sidebar.

Have a creative week!