some thoughts on Claire Wendling:

If you want to learn about drawing animals you go to the best sources.

Claire draws lots of detail--goes from the specific to the general. I'm not too gung ho on the way she simplifies her beautiful complicated drawings. I struggle with simplifying also. When i was at feature, it would blow me away the way the animators could really capture the essense of an emotion or action with a few lines. Most animators i worked with went from the general to the specific.

I will wager she is a leftie. Most of her animals point east. Most of my animals point west, I am a rightie. It is comfortable to draw this way, since that is the direction of the arc of my hand.

She is a thinker. She will draw the same subject over and over again at different angles, different directions, playing the "what if i drew it this way, game", not content with just one solution.

I have been drawing animals from her sketchbook over and over, not to copy her work but to internalize it. I study general surface anatomy--the next step will be a quick sculpt, to really gel those shapes in my head.

the colored lions are done in acrylic, real fast.