Wildlife Waystation Trip! *Long Post*

Yesterday was the Wildlife Waystation trip. It was really really fun and it was the best opportunity that I have ever had to draw animals up close. We mainly drew big cats. I wish we got to draw some of those grizzly bears and zebras but that's ok. Usually the big cats are the ones who are never seen at zoos. So it was great that we could be so close. There are many many many pictures. I just wanted to post a summary of the trip. There are actually more pictures but I put up the best ones.
I also posted some scans of my drawings. I have never drawn big cats before. I was actually going to look up some big cats online first and do a warm up but I didn't get the chance to. But I thought my drawings turned out really well. And it's mostly thanks to the fact that we stayed for about 8 hours and also because the animals were only 3 feet away behind a cage.
Very awesome :)
Some of the other people who were there had some awesome drawings too.
Next time we go, I hope I can do a more intensive study of the big cats.










Our waystation guide warned us not to stare at monkeys or else they'll go crazy. And when we passed by the chimpanzees, we were told to stay quiet, not to look at the chimps and to walk in a tight group very fast pass the chimps. We knew we were successful when our guide reported that no one got spit on this time. :P
Pretty interesting. As interesting as the crimped hair on the baboon in the picture.

SketchCrawl

Last Saturday the 10th was my 2nd sketchcrawl!
I must say that I was a lot more successful this time. I didn't post pictures of my last sketchcrawl because it was my first.
And I didn't like them as much :P
But I'm making progress and I hope that the next sketchcrawl will be even better :)









I've also been experimenting more with my Chinese painting.
I know I'm breaking all kinds of rules when it comes to Chinese painting.
I use the water straight out of the tube :P
But it is mixed with ink and such... so I'm not cheating too much!
This flower that I've been painting is an Iris plant. I added a bit of blue to make the color a bit cooler and it turned out very nice.

I'm taking an oil painting class this semester with a teacher named Julie Kirk.
Back at UCI, I had some pretty horrible painting classes where technique and skill were kind of thrown out the window, and creativity was encouraged.
I ended up hating paint. But Julie Kirk stresses technique and skill, so I'm very happy to take up painting again.
This semester will be very interesting.

Movie Critique

I found this trailer on the apple site a few days after it was released. I must say that I'm excited about Tim Burton's next film called 9. I want to watch the tiny knit beings save our planet :)
Not much to say about it now, but I do have high expectations for it.
It could be a good thing or a bad thing.
Looking forward to the movie! I've also recently have ventured into the curious world of Benjamin Button, starting with the movie poster. It was the large billboard movie poster that first caught my eye.
Two faces that were cut in half :)
Very lovely. I was wondering when a movie poster was ever going to look like this. I know that the movie poster of Face Off also includes two halves of a face, but this time Brad Pitt's face and Cate Blanchett's face are completely cut in half and are at opposite sides of the poster. I really like it :)
Reveals the different relationships between the people I guess.
Warning! Spoiler!:
I like rambling a bit about movies that I have seen recently. Benjamin Button is the topic tonight.
I think the story was interesting and I don't think I've seen a movie quite like this one. I give props to the movie for being very ambitious. I enjoyed the love story and the time line of a man who grew younger instead of older. But being ambitious may also be the downfall. I feel like Benjamin's character development was a bit poor. We never really see him sad, mad or extremely happy. Coming out of the theater, you conclude that Benjamin Button is a humble, courteous, and curious person. He experiences love, war, and death but most of his reactions are the same. Perhaps that is his character though. But a movie that is almost 3 hours and about a man's entire life, I expected more.

Well, it's just a thought. Overall, I still enjoyed the movie.
Definitely a gorgeous movie :)