Last night I needed to sit down and draw, I needed something to inspire me to get back into the habit of drawing every day. I am still struggling with human form and breathing life into portraits of people as opposed to animals so I thought I would look at the monkey world as a way of possibly bridging the gap. It doesn’t, of course, my problem is skin as opposed to fur but once I got started I had to draw this beautiful creature.
I set my human portrait project for October (failed that one 🙁 ) but I now know it will take a lot longer for me to get there…. I will though. I will stop and learn bits as I go to make sure that I do people justice in the long run.
This is as far as I got with my drawing last night – just the outlines of where things should go – but I know that if I share it with you then it will inspire me to continue. This is not an easy drawing but I hope it will be worth it and that it will do this magnificent creature justice.
There is a sad side to this drawing.
Orang-utan means ‘man of the forest’. But the forest they live in is disappearing fast. And when the forest goes, so does the orang-utan.
The orang-utan’s very survival is under threat as forest habitat is cleared to make way for plantations of oil palm, paper and timber. There are now only about half the number of orang-utans left in the wild compared with 10 years ago. This creature is far too beautiful to be allowed to become extinct.
For more information on the WWF work on protecting Orang-utans in the wild and what you can do to help follow this link.
http://www.wwf.org.uk/adoption/orangutan/