Yesterday, January 8th, we were treated to a day trip to the Natural History Museum in South Kensington, the trip lead by one of our life drawing teachers, Maryclare. We were all given two basic tasks, the first of which was to sketch some of the exhibits, be it fossils, taxidermised birds or dinosaur skulls, with the added challenge of including the museum setting in each sketch; in other words, to make it look like each sketch was done in a museum. ‘Setting changes the story.’
The second task was to create a storyboard of five panels inspired by the museum and its exhibits. I was taken with the capybara and jerboa, and how their general builds and appearances contrasted to one another – the capybara is a chunky, tail-less rodent with a rather chill disposition that constantly looks as if they’re falling asleep. The jerboa is quick, nimble and small with a tail longer than their body. What would happen if the two encountered each other?
A somewhat crude, wordless comic where the capybara simply wants to relax and eat grass, and is suddenly interrupted by the jerboa jumping on and off his snout. Rudimentary Tom and Jerry-esque stuff, though I was told that the expressions were very charming, which I do agree with to some point. The jerboa could have been drawn better, on the other hand.