| This was our first-ever winter
workshop - and I believe the photography in this
workshop was the BEST we've ever had! Gorgeous
horses and wildlife in winter coat against beautiful
snowy backdrops - let's just say I'll be painting from
this material for YEARS to come! Our format each day:
-
Meet at Triple D and head out to the
day's site for shooting
-
The animals work in big natural
enclosures, and we're in WITH the animals (except for the tiger -
for obvious reasons)
-
By the time we finished each morning's
shoot, a hot lunch was waiting for us at Triple D (thank you
Kathleen!)
-
Spend each afternoon in sketching, critiques, and exercises in
drawing and values. We worked on the ever-popular two-minutes
sketches and even did some drawing from life of the animals - GREAT
training for hand-eye coordination!
Our weather was very nice - around 25 degrees during the day, and
warming up to 40 by Saturday and Sunday. We had fresh snow several
nights, which made the shoots just incredible.
The animals were all winter-frisky; the two cougar
brothers spent a lot of time leaping on each other, and
the two snow leopards never stopped moving - running up
and down the cliffs and hillside, jumping on each other
or the trainers...the 3 arctic foxes ran zoomies all
over the compound, stopping to bark at each other
occasionally.
The two male red foxes decided to spend an inordinate
amount of time sparring, since this is fox mating season
- great photography and great action behavior!
I was delighted to see everyone's drawing skills improve over the course
of the 4 days, as we spent time on various drawing and values exercises.
We drew one image (an elk cow) at the beginning and again at the end of
the workshop - the improvement in the drawings was dramatic.
Direct observation of the animals in these close quarters taught us such
things as:
- Snow leopard tails are so big and thick they
look like pythons stuck on the cats' butts
- Arctic foxes are impossibly cute - like little
white stuffed toys
- Snow and frost will accumulate on the belly of a
sweaty horse ridden through deep snow
- The head shape of an arctic wolf is a little
different than the head shape of a tundra wolf
...and much more.
My sincere
thanks go to:
Janice, Merilee, Andrea, Nancy, Carrie, and Ela
- as always, I had enormous fun leading the workshop!
Thank you for all the kind words on the workshop evaluations - and I
always take away ideas to improve the next workshop.
Triple D - Jay, Kathleen, Levi, and
Logan - for
making our experience first-rate, and helping us work with so many gorgeous animals! And thank you to Jay and Kim for the
fabulous rib roast on the BBQ - YUM!
And of course the animals themselves:
Tillie and Chaka; Dot and Dash; Kit and Danny; Kimberly; Honey, Tina and
Tony; Dakota and Big John; Betty; Atticus; and Glacier.
THANK YOU!
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