Monterey Bay Aquarium Day 1

My family is on vacation in Carmel and the cottage where we are staying has guest passes to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. I plan to escort everyone to the aquarium and thus get to visit it every single day to draw the animals. I have wanted to do an extended study like this for a while. The aquarium is great because it's out of the sun and there are loads of exhibits. 

Seadragons are my favorite. This is a composite drawing of all the Leafy Seadragons they've got. These were pretty slow moving, but they drift in the current a lot. I noticed that everyone who visited the exhibit said the same couple of things, and also everyone had to take a picture. That was annoying because of course it got in the way of my serious pursuit and also it happened over and over.

When I was done sketching, though, I took some pictures. In this picture his nose is at the bottom and it's a picture of his spine.

I am also using their UV re-entry handstamp in my sketchbook every day, but I don't have a picture because I didn't bring my blacklight on vacation. I really like UV ink (I have been eyeing the Noodlers invisible fountain pen ink for a while) and I really like stamps so it's worth having to explain to the re-entry attendant what I am doing. For Monterey Bay Aquarium Day 1 the stamp was a sea turtle.