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...