Wolves and Acrobats

Dear Sarah - Day 111 of our daily drawing exchange

April 21, 2025
Hi Nikki,

Remember that old book, Women Who Run With the Wolves? Wild woman archetypes, as I recall, although I never read it. Did you? I remember it being a bestseller at the bookstore at UVic when I worked there. Anyway, these are two of the fabulous metal running wolves at Marina Park in Oak Bay. I walked by them yesterday and took a picture. There are five wolves in all and there's a deer, too (see if you can spot it). The installation, called The Hunt, is by an artist named Ken Hall and is made of welded steel. I have never walked by them without doing a double take--for a second, I think they are real. I'm attaching both my drawing and a photo of the wolves in the park.

XO S

Hi Sarah -

Oh, I love this! Both the sculpture and the drawing! Well done - and, how weird, the coincidences once again.

As I was casting about for something to draw, today’s post by Wendy Mac caught my attention. The theme today is movement and how muscles are all connected… I’m not sure if you’ll be able to see this post if you aren’t a subscriber, but here’s the link:

https://substack.com/home/post/p-161235199

The assignment today is to take a dynamic pose where the figure’s whole body is shown and then do a blind contour drawing, following the lines through the movement of the action…

I found this photo (screen shot thereof) - taken of a circus act I saw on a cruise ship - and then did this blind contour drawing:

Though it’s very simple, it does catch the dynamic movement of the acrobat and his shadow.

Which reminds me, weren’t we going to do simultaneous blind contour portraits during one of our Zoom sessions? I think we get too wrapped up in our characters and writing tasks to dally and draw… However, I think this would be a great exercise to tackle during a break sometime soon.

If we don’t have a chance before your in person visit in the summer, we can always do it then…

Until tomorrow,
Nikki