Flamingos at the Bronx Zoo

Last week I went to the Bronx Zoo with a group of artists. What a great place for a sketching trip! I even took out a membership so that I can go back for free. There is a cafeteria called the Dancing Crane Cafe, which overlooks a pond with beautiful Flamingos. Here are two that were begging to be sketched.

I knew I'd be sketching on the run for the most part, so I prepared some sketchbook pages in advance. This two page spread was done with acrylic ink. I painted the borders with brown, then sprayed it with water while the ink was still wet, and blotted it with a paper towel to further texturize the surface.

This is a Stillman & Birn 6x8" Delta Series sketchbook. I've done several multi-media pages in it of this type, and it's handled all the abuse spectacularly well. It's very heavy paper with a heavy layer of sizing, and not too much texture, so my fountain pens seem to like it as well.