Today I finally got to visit the Los Angeles Zoo! I've been meaning to go since after winter break, because I really wanted to practice drawing animals (and also see cute giraffes), but I just didn't have the time and a ride at the same time. Luckily my university hosted a free trip to the zoo, so a friend of mine and I got to go and sketch our day away!
When we got to the zoo around noon, I made sure I saw my favorite animals first. That meant eating at a little cafe with the best view of the giraffes. I've never really sketched moving giraffes before, so my sketches are pretty sloppy (actually all of my sketches are, so whatever).
There were three giraffes--I think one of them was a baby--and they all walked in the same circle and looked in the same direction the whole time. It was really interesting; I never noticed that before! I got to study the pattern on their skin too. Seeing the giraffes at zoo reminded me of how much I've been wanting to animate a short about a clumsy little giraffe and his adventures with a grumpy cat. Hah.
My friend loves elephants the way I love giraffes, so we knew we had to see the elephants next. And we did, except they were so far away we couldn't sketch them properly. We decided to come back later so we can see the other animals first. And we did, too, except they were all taking their little afternoon naps! We saw a sleeping tiger, jaguar, bear, and oh, an adorable sleeping hippo! It had its little butt facing us and we couldn't help but sketch it. Haha.
Our best model of the day, no doubt, was a wise old tortoise. It was so still that I got carried away and drew more details than I usually do. Haha.
Then I got to see gorillas! They were mesmerizing! One of them was really close to the window so I got to sketch it up close. I don't know if I was just seeing things, but I swear I saw it hugging itself and its eyes had this somber look. It looked sad. The other gorilla looked a little less serious; it was just chilling on top of a boulder and munching on some snacks.
Aaaaaand the ridiculously cute award of the day goes to the koalas! They were so cute I swear I could have died from squealing. There was one sleeping so peacefully up in a eucalyptus tree and there was another one with a baby koala on its back! Squee!
About twenty minutes before we had to leave, we ran back to catch the elephants like we planned. We were almost out of hope because the elephants were still far away, but literally at the last minute, the elephants started walking towards the fences! We were so excited that we forgot to take pictures and just hurriedly sketched gestures. They kept walking around, so a lot of my sketches were done in 20 seconds or so. Haha.
I wish I had more time to sketch and observe all the animals, but sadly I only had three hours to spend. It was three hours definitely well spent though!
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