Andi Pasti's Animal Art

When  you watch some funny video compilations on the internet with Pandas falling down trees and rolling down hills endlessly, you might think they are not quite equipped for living in this world. Humans on the internet in the last decade certainly have formed an opinion that Giant Pandas are just meant to go extinct, that they are not build for survival and it’s a miracle they are still around. See some proofs here , here and  here . And indeed, their survival was threatened in the past. In this post I want to explore how it came to be why giant Pandas suffer from human misunderstanding and what effect this still has on us and them. Giant Panda - a picture book teddy bear The Giant Panda's magical allure So what is it with Giant Pandas  ( Ailuropoda melanoleuca )?  Why do we cherish them so much? These animals seem to be the unicorn of the animal world, a super model for highlighting conservation programs and marketing, in contrast to other animals. They have tota...

A few weeks ago I signed up for an online drawing session with wildlifedrawing.co.uk . A few times a year I attend these along the in-person ones. They provide a comforting space where you can unwind, draw and learn more about a particular animal. And you will leave more inspired and uplifted after each session. Drawing hairy-nosed otters online This time it was about the hairy-nosed otter, for me a welcome change to the more familiar and better known Eurasian otter or sea otters you hear a lot about. Hairy-nosed otters are home in South East Asia, where they sadly get victimised by poachers and habitat loss. These otters are so rarely sighted that we don’t know a lot about them and they are considered endangered by the IUCN. Instead of a pencil, our instructor Jennie used a brush ink pen, after the work of  Charles Tunnicliffe‘s wood carvings. I haven’t drawn with ink in a long time traditionally too and decided to give it a try. I used Faber Castell technical pens for the most pa...

How is it end of February already? I didn't get to update the final of the Animal Advent Calendar as I became more overwhelmed right before Christmas and needed to stop. On top of that, I got sick for a few weeks in January. Learning to draw animals is challenging For a long time it was my desire to draw animals. But with so many shapes and forms it is an immense undertaking to tackle them all, if not impossible. I bought several books and did numerous live drawings. But with live drawings you might often feel overwhelmed because your animal models don’t hold still how you like it. The easiest indeed were reptiles and by chance sleeping piglets, which I could have done a blog post about (darn). Books present a calmer and self directed way of learning. And I did start off with books and some generic body plan drawings, feet and hands. But it’s not the most fun way. And you need a lot of discipline to get through a book. At which it again feels a bit like work.  Animal research and d...

In January and February I attended live drawing sessions organised by Wildlifedrawing.co.uk . That was actually a lucky find, since I love animals and they are probably the most interesting topic to draw (for me). And it allowed me to engage in a group of people mesmerised and amazed by our wild muses. The first session was handling rescued reptiles consisting of a tortoise, corn snake, leopard gecko, bearded dragon and a green iguana named Deano who loved a good scratch. Honestly, he really enjoyed being petted and scratched. Usually I start a drawing too small, so this time I started sketching big which was quite the wrong approach. Considering you want to catch the form and appearance of moving animals, it’s probably best to  make small sketches, so you don’t need to move your pencil too far enough. One abandoned sketch I did want to finish as a proper drawing then in the following week after the session. Drawing all the scales was quite time intense, so I learned to appreciate ...