konnestra

Animal study at the aquarium of Bergen. I have been forcing myself to actually get out from ym apartment and study something for weeks, and this sunday I finally did it. I walked up to the aquarium, sat down by a green iguana, and started drawing. I had never been outside much, drawing things in the streets because of my anxiety. But there was a zen-moment between me and the pencil as I sketched down the animals in front of me. I somehow managed to shut out the screaming kids and sizzling water from the tanks, and 3 hours went as I just kepr on moving trough the tanks drawing all the species I could.

My hand started to hurt alot 2 hours in... I kept going however, cause I was short on time. The aquarium closed at 16. I was never a fan of drawing fish, cause I found them boring. And I knew I was wrong, cause once I got one fish down, another one shortly came after and each of them cacked me up. There were so many shapes, species, faces, expressions on each one of them, it was hard to keep a straight face while drawing. The one that really made me smile was the Pacu. They had this chubby smile on their face with wide set eyes. And then there were the angry looking piranha, and a giant one who had a scar on his/her (??) face. I named her Olgara or something. She seemed old...

I didn't get to draw every specie I wanted cause the aquarium was officially closed when Imade it to the biggest tanks. So I had to rush a few species and run out. The most magical moment of this study was how connected I felt to the animals. The seals, iguana, crocodiles, fish... some of them swam up to my moving hand and stood still in the tank so I could draw them. I was listening to the soundtrack from Finding Nemo and I swear it almost made me cry. 

I'm totally going to do more studies like these again, it taught me alot!