Double Yorkie Portrait 2

It has been a crazy weekend with a county fair and tractor pull thrown in, but I managed to get some work done on one of the Yorkies today.  She will definitely need a little reworking as the rest of her comes into view, but I am hoping that the darker values around her muzzle will set her off.  (They both have very light hair.)  The shadows are just a little hard to finish at this point without the darkest values to compare to.   This little one has hair going in every direction... No dull moments here!   In all honesty though,  I find it relaxing to be working at long hair again.  I hope the feeling lasts! ;)

Double Yorkie Portrait Cont.



Severe weather has gotten the best of me this week. Happily, I can report that our town now has electricity and cable/Internet restored after a 4 day hiatus. My home was lucky to not be out of power as long as some of our other residents, but the Internet was out for a good part of the week.  Not that it mattered much to me, since I was busy dragging and chipping brush for our tree business. With the tree work caught up and major heat in the forecast, I was more than content with taking this afternoon to dive into the double portrait of the two Yorkies.

As you can see, they are transferred to the Bristol board. The background will be left out for now, since it is not going to get the one in the photograph. My brain wanted me to start with the Yorkie on the right in the worst way. Please don't ask me why for I will never know the reason.  At any rate, common sense won out in the end, and I held strong to the laws of smearing and began with the little girl on the left. ;) She is mapped in as far as I would like her to be before the blending step. The edges of the fur will be rough until the background makes an appearance.

For anyone who might notice, my usual tape around the edges of my drawing is not present. There is a long story that surrounds its absence, but the short version is that the Turtle drawing had damage from the tape. It was not a malfunction of the tape, but the idiot that applied the tape. I used a colored ruler in the application of my graph that left a few marks on my paper. I attempted to erase these marks... lazily went ahead and used the paper instead of transferring the sketch to a new sheet of Bristol (Hence, the whole reason why I begin my sketches on transfer paper. Duh!)... applied the tape... took forever to complete the drawing... and the tape adhered to the areas damaged by the eraser. Aaargh! To make a long story short -- too late. ;) I am not at all worried that this will happen again, but I am erring on the side of caution. This is a commission, and I will tape the drawing at the point when the background goes in.  Enough said on that sticky situation...

Double Yorkie Portrait

As I mentioned in the post before, the next drawing is a consignment drawing of two Yorkshire Terriers.  The photo I had to work with showed both of the dogs being held onto.  I tossed around doing a bust of the two dogs but am not a fan of their bodies being drawn in separate areas of the paper and  fading into nothingness.  So, I played around on the computer and created a crop that is more true to my style.   The photo is pretty small, so I am using a little larger grid to sketch my line drawing on.  The background is going  to be removed and turned into a blur of shadows.

I was pretty happy with the crop of these two little sweeties, once they were printed out.   Well... I guess it would be more accurate to say, once they were printed out for the fourth time!  Have you ever had one of those days?  My printer is a Canon MP 560.  Although their has been much talk of Canons consuming ink, I really do love this printer.  It has separate ink tanks, and I keep printing even if the computer says to replace a particular tank.  (I have counted and printed 10 extra 8 x 10's the last time by doing that!)  Whatever gives the "ink replacement" warning is way ahead of the ink really running out, which is amazingly wasteful.  Anyways, my black ink was low, and my photo came out lacking that value.  Okay, I expected this eventually.  So, I pop in another sheet of photo paper and a black ink cartridge and start the process again.  Still no black.  What?  I ran a third attempt.  (Don't ask me why I would even do that.  My life mimics the saying that "Haste makes Waste."  Ugh!!)   After that failed attempt, the light went on above my head... clogged printer nozzle.  Duh!  This is the first time that has happened with this printer, which I must add is amazing for how little it is used.  Anyways, successful fourth print...  Yay!

As you can see by the line drawing, one of these little pups has a short and amazingly chiseled hair cut, while the other one is sporting "the Rachel"  made popular by Jennifer Aniston during the early days of Friends. LOL  (Love the cut, and the Yorkie breed  pulls it off so well!)  Let me also add... It is a sad day when your subjects have better hair cuts than your own, and they happen to be canines to boot! LOL  ;)   Back to my point, the contrast in hair styles, along with difference in the size of their heads, will lend itself well to this composition.  The finished size of this piece will be 6 1/4 x 10 1/2 inches.   The crop will make them appear to be looking out of the drawing, which may be a little bit of a twist on the conventional portrait, but sometimes it is nice to be unconventional right?  ;) 

Ooops... I have to add...

Happy 4th of July Everyone!!  :)  

Baby Turtle Finished

Here he is finished!  You all know the drill.  I will leave him up for a few days and do a little touching up and smoothing before it is put away.  But, he is definitely finished enough to post. :)   I didn't add that much sand (which is very hard to see in the photo), because it would be to distracting.  It was definitely something new to work on a reference in a macro setting.  It was a touch more difficult  to get the details in such a small size work, so a little artistic license came into play on some of the details.  It is also interesting to note how the shadows that surround the focal point become so blotchy looking.  When looking at a photo, your eyes correct to see it more smooth.  This could also be contributed to the dark skin tones of the hand.  At any rate, it meant a lot of going back and darkening / smoothing of tones. 

What's next?  I have a commission that I need to get going on of two Yorkies.   There will not be a background with these two.  Haven't completely hashed out the composition yet, but the initial sketches will make that pull together.   One of my son's hamsters, Gordy (I haven't drawn this one yet), has passed away.  Thankfully, we have some photos of him being held.  So, a special request has been made of me to immortalize this little guy in graphite.   So it looks like there will be a lot of fur in my near future!  :)

Baby Turtle 6

This little guy is a pain to get a good picture of, so I zoomed in for a close up shot this time.  The bottom half of his body is blurred, and the thumb's placement is between the focused  and "out of focus" areas.  So, the bottom of the turtle will make more sense when the picture is in its entirety.  The sand on his body still has to be dealt with.  I am going to have the background finished before going back to the sand.   The next post will see this drawing finished!  :)    

Baby Turtle 5

What was that ill fated prediction?  "Finish this one over the long weekend."  Yeah... I don't think so. LOL  I can say this honestly and emphatically, "I have NEVER had my back locked up like it was the day after the last post of this turtle."  I avoided the drawing table until three days ago.  The scary thing is that I do not know what I even did to strain it.  One good thing about it?  It makes me appreciate the mobility that I am getting back so much more!   It is great to be back at the board.  *sigh*

I have spent the last few days mapping in this little guy.  Doesn't look like much does it? ;)  I know, I know.  It takes a long time to do.  He is so small, and there has been a lot of erasing.     He is in his "ugly" stage but is ready to be blended.  No predictions this time... I have some lawn mowing,  town garage sales to attend, and a wedding to go to this weekend.   My favorite time to draw is later into the night, so I will try to squeeze in a few hours here and there. ;) 

A Remembrance on Memorial Day

This is just the most beautiful song from Dire Straits entitled "Brothers in Arms".    God bless the service men and women on this Memorial Day who have served, are serving, and will serve this wonderful country of ours...For those that have come home and those that we will forever hold in our memories and hearts.