Staedtler, Sharpie, and Faber Castell. More about making marks on the paper than anything else. Shown in the order I did them. You can see alignment changes from the under-drawing (2H) around the eyes of the middle lion.

Done for the Wet Canvas weekly challenge.

Scanned in as a high-res colour image. It saturated the lines, so next scan I’ll drop it to grayscale.

Forget everything else – look at the shape of the empty space that the legs of each horse creates. That’s right – I am an artistic genius.

Admission: the right horse has a short tail because I ran out of room, like every other novice idiot.

For the Wet Canvas weekly drawing challenge. 2B, 3B, 6B, 2H. About 90 minutes.

Here I was getting all into the coloured pencils again, after a long and enjoyable run with the graphites, and I seem to have jumped ship suddenly and embraced oil pastels. I submitted a quick study of Ari the cat (he belongs to a well-known member of the Wet Canvas site) in the April oil pastel challenge.

Here’s a quick study while just playing with the pastels. It’s a wonder I didn’t lick them I felt like such a kid:

And here’s the pic. I guess I last spent thirty minutes with oil pastels back in the late 1970s. I like them, I must say:

Cheap newsprint. Portfolio oil pastels. No under drawing.

Been working on the Wet Canvas Monthly Challenge for coloured pencils. The various eyes are tests for colours. The one large detailed eye is the first time I started to get the colours right. The big bunny is what I will enter in the challenge. All Derwent Coloursoft.

Close up of the rabbit eye – there are about ten different colours used here. Trying to apply Trudy Friend’s “tick and flick” method of doing each stroke, which is why it took forever.

Here is my entry for the challenge. About two hours work:

You can tell this is a quicky – there’s no detail whatsoever. But it’s okay even if caricature-ish.

All done for negative space, form, or weight distribution.

Sleepy boxer

Two buddies – the boxer is about version twelve. Weight distribution was all wrong. Also, she looked for a while like she was on steroids.

Fight fight fight

Muscles on a pitbull – incredible. Beautiful dogs.

Angry chihuhua

Fluffy gold coloured dog, bossing a pit bull. Obviously good buddies.

Yet another of the mad dogs. The pit bull was standing off, gauging the distance. His fluffy buddy was poking out his tongue.

The fluffy golden job – looks like a golden retriever cross – this time bullying another of his buddies (all of the dogs seemed to be having a fine time). As George would say, “I’ll mess you up.”

Note the front right paw of the attacking dog. It looks just like a horse’s hoof. I don’t think it’s a screwup by me. The more I looked at the structure of the paw and lower leg, the more it looked like a horse’s hoof (and hock).

All were done for form, balance, negative space. The right-hand dogs in the last two sketches were most difficult – started life as distorted blobs. The lines went in to mark muscle mass and tension. Ended up looking like a dog.

Arse bite. This was the warmup sketch.

Progresso 9B, some marker pen (screwed up – should have just used for major form definitions), and some Prismacolours (the soft ones, not the Verithins).

Looking to convey action, which is why the geese are fighting, the crow is cawing, and the wolves are playfighting (yes, they are wolves, not bears).

Detail of geese (very blunt/flat 9B):

What I most enjoy doing – loose sketches of animals using a Progresso 9B. The terrier was wet. The crow was done solely to try and catch the feel of the beak on the chestnut. The honeyeater was very quickly done to catch the spread of wings and tail feathers.

Quick sketch that kept going. According to his owner, he is responding to the sound of his name being called through a cardboard tube.

2B, 4B, 9B

Mostly using Prismacolors. This has been doctored in Photoshop – the measuring was off and I just couldn’t stand it (I reduced the outer line of the muscles in his chest). Great photo taken from Flickr.

Following Trudy Friend’s advice, I used the “tick and flick” method to do the jay’s feathers. Which works well, if you like hairy birds.

Focusing on dark areas of his face, shadows, and line direction to match form. GraphGear 500. 4B (probably).

Playing around with marker pen – Copic and Prismacolor – and coloured pencil – Prismacolor Verithins and whatever their fatter/softer ones are called.

I ignored what I’d read online and started with pencil. Better than all the previous attempts.

From a statue by Fernando Botero.

Prismacolour Verithins and Premiers. About 1 hour 45 minutes. 3.5″ x 5.5″.

A most interesting magnolia seed. Photo reference.

Small version:

Large version:

I defected – Prismacolors. About 2 hours.

Small size:

Full size:

The leaf isn’t really drawn in front of the poppy so the overlap is not right. Simply need to draw one in front of the other.

Stabilo Carbothello pastel pencils. About 1 hour. Scan took the grays and made them blue.

9B. About thirty minutes. Need to do same but with FEWER LINES YOU IDIOT. I was going to rehabilitate the eyes-on-two-levels issue but figured what the hell.

Progresso 9B. Contour lines – see Durer. Trick is to make them look like contour lines and not fur.

6B. 10 minutes. a’la Mervyn Peake.

About ten minutes. This is the baseline sketch on which all other self-portraits shall improve.

I know, I know. It’s crap. But it’s little more than a quick concept sketch to start getting an idea of what I want to do – so keep your pants on.

No grid. No initial graphite sketch. No large sections blocked out – it was all done one little area at a time.

About 2.5 hours using Derwent Coloursofts. The scan saturated the colors – the original is nowhere near as polyester in appearance.

Here’s the same sketch, this time with 300 (versus 60 or so), and unsharp mask off.

I can’t see any damn difference.

This time set at 96dpi, and scanned in for a target of 4″ x 6″ (usually I scan it at original). Auto levels used in Photoshop as per usual:

4800dpi at 4″ x 6″. Took a couple of minutes to scan.

Several hours. I made numerous technical mistakes with the colored pencils (Derwent Coloursofts) and, of course, did it on Strathmore Drawing paper, 80lb, medium, which is bloody terrible for use with coloured pencils (it has great tooth, but is too coarsely grained).

No grid – this was drawn freehand. Nostril is in the wrong location, and the snout is too long. Shadows came up really dark – too dark. (For the shadows I used a blend of dark green, purple, red, and orange.)

The amateur entomologist who posted his photo on Flickr noted the following characteristics about this creature:

What: A grasshopper
Where: On a leaf

Thank you, sir. HB and cheap paper. About 45 minutes.

And no – I’m not making it up. That’s what its tail looks like…

Hold on. I just got thinking about what exactly this must be. Grasshoppers don’t have tails… So, after a little research my guess is that it’s his aedeagus – or to put it another way, his penis.

A rabbit standing up. Took about ten minutes. :

A cat wearing an Easter bonnet. Also about ten minutes. Both sketches were HB (I think) on the cheapest paper I could find. Both about 4″x6″.