Drawing a Bulldog 2

A little blending goes a long way! The bulldog's body is finished. I am very happy with the results. I went over the dark lines with a blending stump to work the graphite into the Bristol board. Then swiped across different regions of the body with various dirty stumps which caused most of the shading to happen naturally. If the shading was too dark, my kneaded eraser pulled it out. When working light areas, the sand paper pad was used to clean my stump so that the shading was very subtle. The best part was deepening the dark shadows. They make the body bounce from the page. I was a little nervous at first that this drawing would fall flat, due to its lack of strong details, but it seems to be going in the right direction.

Now, I will move onto the face. The details are not the greatest in that area, but the contrasts in value are very high. This should help to make it come forward and give the illusion of clear features. My hopes are beginning to rise with this drawing. I know it will look like an old photo when I am done (as it should), and my instincts are telling me that will be the charm of this particular drawing... at least I hope so! ;0)