okavango drawings

I did quite a few drawings on this most recent trip to the Delta. I'm not sure if I've ever posted drawings/paintings on this blog before... I suppose because they're just quick sketches, nothing particularly finished or impressive... But it's nice to have a different view of the trip, so I'll be posting a few.

I love to draw when I'm travelling - drawing, though it cannot capture the detail that a photograph can, fixes the moments much more clearly in my memory. Something about the act of sketching, the intense concentration, puts my brain into a state more conducive to forming detailed long-term memories. When I look at a photograph, most often I cannot recall the exact moment that I took it; when I look back through my sketchbook, I can remember the weather, the people around me, the sounds, what I was thinking at the time.

Grey lowrie bird and a tree... I drew these at lunchtime, sitting on the ground by our camp, looking out over the pan and trying to draw the bird as it hopped around pecking for food. The tree, thankfully, sat still. Drawing animals is wonderful, but an exercise in patience and quick drawing - for every drawing that works out, there are several that fail because the animal just will NOT return to the pose you began drawing.



Giraffe - I was quite happy with these drawings. We came across a large herd of giraffe (if you want to be persnickety about your collective nouns, it was a "tower" of giraffe) and watched them for over an hour, as they bent their graceful heads to the treetops and walked majestically back and forth with their slow-motion steps. A young male was beaten off by the dominant male of the herd - their fight was like a gentle ballet, necks swung with heavy, ponderous movements, reminding me somehow of bull kelp swaying in the tide. Every motion of a giraffe looks slow-motion, underwater, as their impossibly long limbs swing through the air. When they stretch out to run (fast!), they appear to be moving too slowly to generate the breeze that blows back their tail-tassels.