Drawing in the Museum of Natural History

I usually go to Naturalis in Leiden to study and draw animals. Sometimes I go also to the museum in Rotterdam and Tilburg.

In a Museum of Nature History I can easy look and draw animals from all angles and very close. It's also nice to see the differences - for example - of a crow, rook and raven. Buf if you have seen many animals in zoos and in the nature, you can notice a difference anyway. How clever is the work of stuffed animals you can see that they miss somethig. Their colors, for example, are duller.

Last week I went to Naturalis again to draw birds from their back side for a drawing (see please my flickr).
Here a few sketches from my sketchbook (two sketches from last week en others from the last two years):

Naturalis has a good bookshop. This year I bought these two books: “Bird, the definitive visual guide” and “Smithsonian Natural History, the ultimate visual guide to everything on earth”. Both books are published by DK Publishing. These books are not only as reference but also for enjoying the pictures.