Yes, it's hard to believe, but I did draw from life today, at the Oakland Zoo, with good friend Ian. It was great! The weather was beautiful, the kids tolerable, and the animals visible. I decided to take a sampling, instead of drawing just one animal for the whole time, and it was quite refreshing...no more counting drawings, waiting for new poses, getting frustrated when you don't get the shapes right...it was a genuinely enjoyable drawing day. So I drew tigers, giraffes, zebras, even a lion or two (I've been to the O Zoo at least 10 times without ever seeing the lions, not that I wasn't looking). I'm posting up the best stuff here, and also some photos I took. 
Don't be fooled by the photos...they didn't look like this before entering my computer. The nice thing about having a 7 megapixel camera is that you 
can take pictures of things that are far away, and blow them up in Photoshop to create a pleasing composition, whilst retaining the detail and sharpness of the subject. Toss in there a little levels adjustment, re-saturate it, and a little blur in the background, and you've got a nice picture...that is, you've got a photo closely resembling the magic of what you originally saw with your own eyes. Very pleasing :-).Cheers! --L
