Words and Light

At the end of January, I was sent to Nixon County Park, where kids would learn to sketch wildlife. As I drove to the park, I thought a bit about the assignment and figured they’d be shown professional wildlife sketches and taught how to replicate them. I was wrong.

I should have known, as I’ve covered a variety of activities at the park before, but Nixon County Park has a selection of taxidermied animals, ranging from geese to wolverines (I didn’t know those actually existed) to a hippopotamus. And these were the animals that, after some brief instruction on how not to draw cartoon-like creatures, the kids began to sketch.

© 2012 by The York Daily Record/Sunday News. Zane Saxton, 11 of Manchester Township, uses pastels to color in a coyote he sketched in a wildlife sketching class on Saturday, Jan. 28, 2012, at the Nixon County Park Nature Center. Under the instruction of volunteer Teanna Byerts, kids learned to sketch wildlife.

I also should have blogged these photos earlier — i.e., before the link to the article expired — but I’ll have you know that the article opened with a quote from one girl to another about how “No offense, but” the butt she was drawing was “really big.”

© 2012 by The York Daily Record/Sunday News. Joshua Mundis, 10 of Lower Windsor Township, sketches a wolverine in an art class on Saturday, Jan. 28, 2012, at the Nixon County Park Nature Center.

© 2012 by The York Daily Record/Sunday News. Gillian Cunningham, 9 of Dallastown, looks up at a flock of taxidermied geese as she begins sketching in a wildlife art class on Saturday, Jan. 28, 2012, at the Nixon County Park Nature Center.