Otter Cont.

Here is the progress on the otter head study. As you can see, I am staying on course for going right to left with this one. The background of the fur may need a little more 'fading out', due to its strong organic shapes. This is caused from the otter being wet in the picture. The clumpy hair, which was out of focus in the distance, took on a pattern all its own. Value wise, I would say that area is spot on, but I will have to see if it draws to much attention after the drawing is complete. The face hair and whiskers will be more sharp and in focus which should make them a good balance to the background fur. Only time will tell!

Sunshine Award

Thank you to Mariska for giving me the honor of the Sunshine Award. I really appreciate it :) ! I know I am suppose to list those that I think should receive it next. Instead, I would like to follow Gary Keimig's lead by sharing this award with all that follow my blog and those bloggers that I love to go and visit!! There is some inspiring and talented artists out in the blogosphere, and I would be so much less of an artist if not for them... So thanks again to Mariska (one of those super talented artists) and you can check her out at her blog http://mariskasthings.blogspot.com/ .

I must say, it is nice to see a little color on this blog isn't it ;) !?!

Otter Drawing

The next drawing on the board is a head study of an otter. The finish size will be 8 x 5 1/4". I am trying out working from left to right on this one. It was very tempting to do the background first, but so far I am sticking to plan. His head (which is probably hard to see in the sketch) is in the center of the drawing and is the only thing in true focus. He has some wonderfully long whiskers that should be fun. There is not a lot of details to this one, because it is a pretty dark valued photo reference. I was really drawn to the photo though and will stay loyal to the values in it. This drawing will be a good lesson in getting my graphite to go as dark as it possibly can.

Gorilla Study Finished

Well the Gorilla is finished. I had thought about putting some blurred out bamboo in the background, but it is a rather striking pose with just the foggy graphite. It will stay on the board for awhile until I am sure. The hair was time consuming and made me glad that this was in a small format. It was fun to draw the facial features with the high contrast in values. I used my usual 2b mechanical pencil but had to bring in a 9b for the really dark areas. This drawing was not as busy as some of my compositions, but I think he is pretty strong all on his own.

The next drawing is a head shot of an otter. I did the line drawing while working on this piece. It will be simple in its composition. I think sometimes one can study an animal better without all the noise of a background. The overlapping piece will probably go back to something a little more complicated. I might have to corner a human subject this time. We'll have to see!!

Gorilla Study

Getting closer to completion! You might wonder what is going on in the lower left corner. That is the blurred area of the photo where his shoulder is. It is showing a little 3d in the pic, which I guess is good since it is suppose to be in the foreground. Most of the fur has been completed. There is mainly just the black skin area left. It isn't very noticeable in the picture, but I put a few layers of graphite to the right side to get rid of the glaring white of the Bristol. I'm not sure if I will do anything else to that area...probably not. His nose and mouth will be very strong in contrast and should give a pretty bold presence.

Just a side note: I can't help but think of the old TV series Planet of the Apes when thinking of gorillas. They were the armed forces of the planet, I believe, in the series. They scared me to death and mind you this was way before any fancy computerized special effects. (Yes, for those too young, it was in color!) Okay, I digress... back to the subject at hand...

This will be put to the side tonight to make room for the next line drawing. I am pretty sure it will be a head shot of an otter. This one will be back on the table on or before Thursday. It is going to be hard to walk away, but I think it will be good for me to learn to multi task.

A Gorilla Close Up

I spent a few days pouring over pictures for my next drawings. There were several that actually appealed to me, and one in particular that will probably overlap this one at some point. I wanted to work on two or more simultaneously... We'll see! There is a little bit of fear that I might lose my momentum if the gears are switched to something new. But I am determined to give this a go, so a line drawing (at least) will begin on another drawing during the process of doing this one. Maybe then, there won't be that lull one gets after a drawing is completed. The perplexing lull...You know wandering around aimlessly trying to find the next poor victim to be drawn! ;0)

Oops, guess my title gave this one away! I really liked this shot of a gorilla. It is a tight close up of his face. He is quite a challenge, since the camera's main focus is on his nose and mouth area. This has left a lot of his features in different states of out-of-focus. My eyes are getting a work out. In searching for the details, my eyes want to put everything into proper focus. So periodically, I have to hold the reference photo farther away to readjust my eyes. When the fur gets completed, I will take a step back and do my final value darkening to catch the overall shadows. If I try to work my values to completion in sections, then they are not cohesive with the rest of the areas. Then one has to do an all over check which results in rework, and NOBODY wants that!!

My intentions were to have the chance to finally go left to right with my work. Then, I found myself sneaking across the paper. All at once my husband was standing next to me saying, "Oh yah, had to hurry along just to get to the eye!" RATS... Caught in the act!! But the fur was getting so tedious! I feel so guilty...well kind of...anyways :)

The overall size of this piece will be 9 1/2 x 5. It's funny. I never thought I'd love doing smaller work. The motto was 'go large' in school, but this smaller format is kind of nice. It would probably make sense to work on smaller drawings and overlap them with one large work in progress. There are a few ideas in the back of my mind that might work well for this. Time will tell...

Dani's Exercise Drawing Completed

Nothing like starting off the month by finishing up a drawing! I will let it rest for a couple of days and see what might need some rework. I might give the shirt some more definition mainly in the sleeve and waist area. (My son had his shirt tucked in well in the reference photo, which took away any chance of creasing.) We'll see. My eyes need a rest from this drawing for right now. I am not to happy on my time frame with completing this one. I did a lot of slacking off. Hopefully, the next composition will go faster!

This drawing completed is 8 1/2 x 8". I used a 2b mechanical pencil and enhanced the darks with a 9b. I pulled highlights with a kneaded eraser and a smaller sized click eraser. The belt kept its original details from the photo reference. I chose to alter this same belt in the other drawing of Dani. I thought that in that one it would be to much of a distraction. It seems to anchor this drawing well. The shirt is lighter, and like I mentioned earlier, I might put some more definition into it. The lighter fabric seems to brighten this composition and push the focal point forward. With regards to Dani, he got a little teasing to his hair and darkening of values. I felt he needed it in order to hold his own in this composition.

Now onward to thinking about the next composition. I have been challenged to do a self portrait. YIKES! Trust me I am in NO hurry on that one. My husband wants me to do a drawing of our cat (his little princess!) who happens to have black fur. YIKES, again! My brother in law would love a drawing of his cat (black and white fur...), but you can't get within 10 feet of that cat without him attacking and drawing blood. Time to break out the zoom lens! I do have an interesting pic of a squirrel that has strong possibilities. I'll have to look around and see what I can dig up. I might work on two studies at the same time. It would be interesting to see if I could make the jump back and forth...