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10/29/2006

Toy Animals


I just did these sketches and had to share with you before my day ends. My two year old has a set of small toy plastic farm animals, and I thought it would be fun to draw some of them. I disparage them for being out of proportion to each other: all could stand side by side in real life, except the monster pig who's larger than the horses and one goat taller than everybody else.


I thought it would just be a quick, amusing exercise but to my surprise I found myself really studying the anatomy of these toy animals, the shapes and masses of their features. They really are more realistic than I had given them credit for. (Although other aspects of them are not realistic: this sheep has pink wool!)



I meant to stop after drawing the goat, but my daughter saw what I was doing and got excited about it, seeing me recreate her animals on the paper. She set one after another in front of me: "now mommy draw this one!" so I kept going.


The donkey gets scorned because his front legs tend to rub ankles and he always falls over when my daughter is trying to line them up, causing her no end of frustration.


This little running apaloosa horse is one that I found on a walk, and got adopted into her collection.


Most of the sketches I did in less than five minutes, but I spent a bit more time on this colt. They are all small drawings, three to five inches. Not much bigger than the toy animals themselves, who are all less than four inches, nose to tail.

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