This weekend my friend Elisa came down to visit DC, so Tini and I decided to take her to the zoo to draw the animals. Our first stop was to draw the giant pandas. There was a baby panda born there 16 months ago named Tai-Shan, and my has he grown! He's a whopping 77 lbs.! Tini told me that his name means "butterstick," because he was the size of a stick of butter when he was born. This is a drawing of him sleeping on a weeping willow branch thirty feet up. I dont know the hippo's name so I'll just call him "bucky" on account that he has extremely large buck teeth. It turned out to be a perfect day to walk around DC, at 70 degrees we were able to wear tee-shirts. Sunday it dropped to 40 and rained all day. I guess you could say we lucked out!
1 comment:
Tina,
Great sketches of Tai Shan in the willow tree. I have his name in Google alerts and your blog came to me through that. I was there this weekend also--I made a special trip from New York State just to see him. Finally able to visit after seeing him on the panda cam for 16 months. I wish I would have seen you sketching, but it was crowded to say the least. Just wanted to let you know Tai Shan means Peaceful Mountain in Chinese. Actually, there is a very famous mountain by the same name there. Butterstick was the nickname that some people gave him before he received his formal name at 100 days old (Chinese tradition). The zoo staff mentioned he was the size of a stick of butter when he was born. Happy Tai watching.
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