Nina's University Sketchbook, Vol 4

The summer of 2006 was my first time back home in California after a year away at university in Canada. I survived my first full winter in a place that has snow (and seasons for that matter), passed all my classes, and found a safe place to stash all my stuff for a few months.

Back at home, I decided to look for a job so I could save up a bit of cash on top of going back to volunteering at the zoo - If there was one thing that I had a serious lack of over the school year, it was animal interaction, so that summer I was going to make up for it!

I snagged a job at a local doggie daycare/kennel, and spent most of the summer playing with dogs and getting a tan... but I also did lots of drawing and sketching of course. I took lots of pictures in the kennel of the dogs, with the intent of practicing all the photography education that I got over the last school year (a good film school is no joke). I also came up with a fun idea for a kids TV show (which has evolved into an animated feature idea, yet to be fully developed), and overall managed to have a pretty great summer seeing all my old friends, making artwork, and catching up.

As the end of summer drew near, I started getting inspired to make some presents for the kennel, so I drew a few of the regulars (dogs, that is) for the owner to hang around the lobby. The staff at the zoo also actually commissioned me to paint some special presents for that summer's intern crew as well. So the theme for today's Sunday Artday post is End of Summer Gifts!

Snoopy

Pen, coloured pencil
Snoopy was the resident beagle at the kennel. He lived there, and was the ambassador of the place. As an old man, he mostly waddled around the property and slept for 80% of the day, but he was a sweetheart and an excellent judge of doggy character. He could tell immediately if a new dog to the kennel was going to fit in or not, so paying attention to his communication with us was a big part of the job. Here he is as King of the Kennel.

Throw the Ball!

Pen, coloured pencil
Nikita was a springy and lean german shepherd who was one of the long time M-F visitors. She could play catch all day long. All. Day. Long. Suffice to say, I got really good at throwing balls because of her and the other chronic fetcher, Shadow. But when she wasn't begging to be played with, she was a total ham.

Ostrich Egg Painting: Boa

Acrylic on Ostrich Egg
The SF zoo's usual parting gift for its summer interns, for a few years while I was there at least, were drained ostrich eggs picked up from the Africa pen. Ostriches lay tonnes of infertile eggs just like chickens, and while I don't think anyone ever went so far as to make omelettes with them, the zoo certainly had enough of them to give away at special occasions. The year previous, I was given mine (which sits proudly on top of my bookshelf alongside my skull collection), but this year they wanted me to personalize them by painting each of the outgoing interns' favourite creature from our department on each one. Here's the Columbian Red-tailed Boa Constrictor, Fluffy, on an egg.

Ostrich Egg Painting: Porcupine

Acrylic on Ostrich Egg
Here's the Prehensile-tailed Porcupine, Sassafrass, on an egg - she was always one of my favourites to work with too. That big, ridiculous, squishy nose was the cutest thing on the planet. Though I don't miss getting poked, let me tell you.

Ostrich Egg Painting: Maya

Acrylic on Ostrich Egg
And finally, here's the Blue-Fronted Amazon parrot, Maya. She was always very talkative and cheeky, which is pretty typical for a parrot. She was very sweet on only a select amount of people, and I was not on that list. But fortunately we did manage to reach an understanding between us which allowed me to pick her up on a stick and pack her up when I needed to.

More art next Sunday! Actually, possibly before, as I have a very cool album cover which hopefully I can share next week!

Thanks again for all your support, and tune in next week for more artworks!