Two quick sketches

Below are two quick charcoal sketches that I did at the San Diego Zoo a few weeks ago. Sometimes I find that quick sketches can have a sort of fun, rough, expressive quality that more careful drawings may lose a little bit.

A window view

It seems that the surroundings of objects greatly influence how they are perceived. An object taken out of its normal context can seem very strange when it might normally be entirely unnoticed. The picture below, taken through a window in Oakland, contains objects no doubt intended for purposes of medical training. However, the scene does seem a little unusual without the usual users of the items, especially given their vaguely human form.

Tree

It's nice to be able to use my new pastels again. Below is a quick sketch I did outside this past weekend. It's an interesting challenge to try to express an object that has such fine details that it would be almost impossible to draw all of them.

Tea leaves

The human mind seems sometimes to impose order upon randomness. When looking at chaotically arranged items, one can sometimes subconsciously assemble them into a familiar object.

After drinking a cup of tea some time ago, I decided to play a bit with the leaves remaining in the bottom of my cup. Restricting myself to not touching the leaves directly, I moved them around using the small amount of remaining liquid.

Sometimes shaking the cup produced a familiar shape of some sort or another. Once I found an interesting shape, I shook the cup around carefully to make it resemble that shape slightly more. Below is one example of the result, but I will leave it to the reader to imagine what the leaves might remind them of.