Circus Came to Town!

Today our small town in the middle of the country in the middle of Europe became a home for upcoming week or so for a glorious Circus called "National Circus JO-JOO" (národní cirkus Jo-Joo In Czech)

http://www.narodnicirkus.cz/index.php?page=10000&lang=cz

They have among other variety of animals lovely tigers (whom I admire greatly since childhood) and they have during a day open circus Zoo for a reasonable toll. So I decided to go there to study them from life and see their majesty in person! There's no substitute for real thing and photographs can't describe the beauty of those animals.

It was really challenging to attempt a sketch because all the tigers were moving a lot in their cages so I ended up with rather scarcity of sketches in my field blog. However I managed to do one portrait in full colour of one of the sleeping fellows. You can see my setting in this video:

I've done this thumbnail (literally) sketch in watercolour with some touches of white gouache. Since I have the colours at least in one portrait (And now I have mixtures on my palette in my travel rig) I can finish rest of the portraits now with that sole colour study and from photos that I made in black and white - I think that os good practise - not to be influenced by colours that see my camera and rather to use colour that helped me to express myself right on the spot.

Remember - there's nothing more than a real thing. Photos are fine but to see things in person and really "inhale" them is completely different thing.

And what is your experience in sketching wild animals from life?  I'm a newcomer to this realm and it's a great and exiting challenge. Next time - cows and horses maybe? 

Petr