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| Noah's Ark by Raymond Sheppard |
In the UK we have seen so many rainy days in the last few months - with flooding everywhere and flood warnings being issued day by day. Living on the edge of the Fens we are very interested in those warnings. But we haven't yet had to buy a boat, but Raymond Sheppard's drawing of Noah's Ark doesn't seem to far-fetched!
I decided this time to take the theme of the seaside in order to remember that the rain will disappear some time soon - I hope! All the images are photos taken by Christine Sheppard who kindly sent them to me. I have cropped some but generally left them as delivered.
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| Lobster study in pencil |
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| Lobster |
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| Lobster study |
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| Lobster |
I always love looking at Raymond Sheppard's studies, imagining the hours of work he put in at London Zoo and other places. In "Drawing at the Zoo" Sheppard writes:
[The] next problem is [...] how to cope with an animal that is rarely still and often on the move. This latter is our most harassing and immediate problem. Most of us have learnt to draw from still objects. [...]. I need hardly say that a different approach is necessary when drawing from an animal who rarely holds any pose for more than a minute and is just as likely to disappear entirely into some inner den or sleeping box. This vanishing trick can be very exasperating. We must just exercise patience and hope he will re-appear. Now, no one can be expected to change his habits overnight, so to start with I think it a good idea to draw from the sleeping or seated animal whenever you get the chance. At first try to get the whole animal down on paper—then make careful studies of separate details; eyes, ears, paws, etc. Considered renderings of the difficult foreshortening of limbs outstretched in slumber; all these studies will increase your knowledge. Most important of all; when you get home draw it all again from MEMORY.
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| Lobster |
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| Lobster outline in profile |
He certainly "practised what he preached" looking at the various angles of the lobsters above. Below is a finished pen and ink which I have not found to be published yet. For some finished drawings of seaside life, I've shared the images already from The Children's Own Treasure Book and there's an image of a lobster also in The Children's Book of Games, Puzzles and Pastimes
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| Pen and ink of Lobster |
The second set of studies are of seals - which will have been invaluable for the drawings accompanying Rowena Farre's Seal Morning - which I have covered five times on this blog as it's a favourite of mine!
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| Studies of a seal (x5) |
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| Studies of a young seal |
The upper image shows the principle of catching the outline, then trying to add depth to the figure followed by concentrating on one aspect. I also love the fact Sheppard has started with a finished drawing in the latter image and then focussed on the flippers.
When I was a child, living in Malta in the 1960s I loved swimming and catching hermit crabs and racing them off rocks into the water. Hopefully I didn't traumatise too many! So here are some studies of hermit crabs and their shells by Sheppard - some in outline and some finished in pencil.
I recently bought a photo of sand eels on acrylic plastic and these images of seaweed make me want to see what the finished drawing, or painting might have been! But at least we can see Sheppard's work.
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| Sand eels in seaweed |
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| Seaweed forms |
When I was a child I owned a budgie which loved cuttlefish. Here we see two studies by Raymond Sheppard of two live cuttlefish on the move!
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| Cuttlefish |
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Cuttlefish |
Finally we have a starfish and a crab both drawn in colour.
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| Common Starfish |
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| Crab |
