Sketch Tuesday ~ Zoo Dwellers

This week my girls drew animals they could see at the zoo.

Miss. K  found this lovely picture of a lioness suckling her cubs in our Childcraft Encyclopedia.

She drew this lovely pencil sketch:

(My only tip while she sketched was to find the darkest places in the picture and shade them really dark.

This contrast helped create a 3 dimensional feel.)

Miss. L decided to combine 3 animals she liked when she browsed through our Pocket Guide of Mammals of Southern Africa.

She sketched and coloured a hippo, zebra and an elephant.

(A tip for her was to draw the horizon line in her background so that her animals did not “float”.

Once she drew this line, she added the background and her picture looked complete.)

If you don’t have time for this week, join in on Tuesday for the following week’s assignment!

Next week’s sketch, due, Monday, August 30th:
Sketch something that lives at the zoo.

Make your sketches and send them in by Monday, August 30th and I will include it in the slideshow on Tuesday morning. All sketchers are welcome and there is no need to sign up. Participate as much as possible and make sketching a weekly habit. Send in your sketches in jpg format and mail them to: sketchtuesday@yahoo.com. Complete instructions are found by clicking the Sketch Tuesday tab at the top of my blog.

Ironically, after completing the sketches, (my kids start straight after viewing the slideshow and finding out the new theme), our family enjoyed a rare day at a zoo and spent a “Day With The Wild” at Cango Wildlife Ranch on the weekend.

They offer guided tours and our 60 minute tour through the Valley of Ancients was excellent! Our guide took us through a tropical house and past various animal environments where we viewed some of the world’s most elusive and secretive animals  such as the Pygmy Hippo, Ring-tailed Lemur, Blue Duiker and Flying Foxes (Megabats).

During  summer months visitors can also see the Ranch’s guides hand feeding 3 meter Nile Crocodiles on tour at the Jumping Jaws pool. They even offer caged dives with the Nile Crocodiles!

Image via Wikipedia

The park is famous for their Cheetah Conservation Program and they hand-rear cheetahs.  Elevated walkways allowed us a bird’s eye view of powerful predators such as the Lion, the Tiger and the white Bengal Tigers.

The Natural Encounters program allows visitors to interact with a variety of ambassador species such as tiger cubs, cheetah and reptiles.  Young children handle the young cheetah cubs, while adults handle the fully grown adult cheetahs.

Tickets are valid for the day and visitors can re-visit any area at their leisure after the tour.  For young children there is a delightful petting zoo and play area, a water park, lorikeet aviary, wallaby walkabout and snake park.

We so seldom visit a zoo, so it was a treat to see and learn so much.