in with the sheep and the goats

This morning I ran over to the Surrey Docks City Farm to sketch the sheep and goats. They hadn’t been fed yet, so they were restless and moving around too much to draw very easily, but it was nice being in the pen with them. Here’s a quick sketch of one of the workers milking a goat.

They’re not at all like sheep in the country, they’re completely used to people and very affectionate. Sort of like my character, Vern; he’s very agreeable and doesn’t really understand country life. One of the younger sheep wouldn’t let me sit without having his head in my lap, which wasn’t great for drawing, but it was rather pleasant having him sniffing my chin and breathing warm hay fumes into my face.

Here’s a worker feeding orphan goats with the milk she’d just taken from the mum. I really had to be quick to draw that one, they were wriggling like mad.

This old sheep and young goat were hilarious; the sheep obviously detested the goat, which kept jumping up on his back and surfing the sheep as it bumbled around the pen. Finally the goat used the sheep to propel itself over the fence, and the sheep was stuck by itself, bleating lustily until one of the workers let it out to join the other sheep. I wish I could have drawn these two better, but they were all over the place.