An Afternoon at the Zoo

It was a gorgeous day for a trip to the Sacramento Zoo. I had four ostrich eggs to deliver for the Zoo's upcoming "Swingin' Safari" Golf Tournament. The eggs (with pen & ink drawings of Black & White Ruffed Lemurs) will be given out as awards. The Zoo is about 45 minutes away, so I don't always take the eggs there, sometimes I'll meet a Zoo staffer halfway for the hand-off. But I hadn't been to the Zoo yet this year, so today was a good day to make the trek.

This is my second batch of four eggs this year; the first four had roadrunners on them. For the remainder of the year, there are four individual eggs for various events - each with a different animal. Each year, Zoo staff commissions about a dozen ostrich eggs. Over the years I've been doing this, that adds up to well over 200 eggs! You can see some eggs from past years on this web page. And there are a couple of blog posts also.

When I go to the Zoo, I always take my camera. Here are some photos from today:

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River Otter Illustration

Staff at the Sacramento Zoo commissioned this drawing of a river otter and I finished it last week. Earlier this year, the Zoo had commissioned otters on ostrich eggs for their annual golf tournament. The eggs are given as awards at the tourney. One of the Zoo goals this year is to raise funds to enhance the existing otter habitat, so otters were the critter of choice for that fund-raising event. The drawing will be used on note cards that staff will send to select recipients.

The drawing measures approx. 5.5" x 8". This is one of the few ink drawings that isn't on scratchboard. I drew this on smooth Bristol (a heavy paper) with black Micron pens in two sizes (.20 & .25 mm).



These are the ostrich eggs for the Golf Tournament. I use India ink in Rapidograph technical pens for these drawings. Visit this page of my web site for more ostrich egg art.

The reference photo I used was provided by the San Francisco Zoo. Staff at the Sacramento Zoo got permission for me to use it.


Here's a detail of the drawing:
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The original has sold - I'll donate a portion of the proceeds to the Sacramento and San Francisco Zoos.

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