Exercise: Grabbing the chance

Quick Gesture Sketches
I really enjoyed this exercise of drawing animals, especially drawing my two dogs, Misty and Poppy. It was interesting trying to capture their gestures and character in the drawings.

I started off watching them for an hour or two and drawing some quick sketches every time they changed pose. I'm quite pleased with my attempts as the poses come across as what I intended, even the drawings on the bottom right of Poppy scratching! I think it was a good exercise for me to do as I try and draw things sometimes in too much detail, so it was good to be quicker and looser with the pencil. 

It was interesting trying to draw something I already knew well, in terms of character. Poppy (Springer Spaniel) has a very alert and 'on-the-ball' character, which really shows in the bottom drawings on the second picture with her upright back and right-angled, stiff head. Contrasting with that, Misty (Labrador/Retriever) is laid back and 'soft', which is shown with her poses consisting of more curves and relaxed lines. 

These quick sketches have really helped me in knowing how to start drawing a pose!

Gesture drawings of 'Misty' and 'Poppy', Labrador/Retriever and Springer Spaniel 

More gesture sketches of Misty and Poppy

Adding more detail

I then went on to add more detail to some sketches, using thicker pencils to add some shading. I found the pencil worked really well in producing enough dark/light contrasts and for creating the fur textures, so I stuck with it!

I used my previous techniques of hatching and drawing directional lines to add contours to the form of the dogs as I did with my still life drawings. I also used softer outlines for a more natural look, which worked especially well when I wanted to add stronger lines for shadow or darker areas to contrast. 

I tried drawing a black bear (from a photograph) using graphite pencils to experiment with the darks and highlights. The hatching is a bit messy in this and unfinished, but I'm pleased with the contrasts of highlights to dark shadows. The bear looks much stiffer than the sketches of the dogs. This could be because I had drawn it from a photograph and not from real life like the dogs, or maybe because I knew the dogs better?!

I also attempted a tiger using coloured pencil, intrigued by the patterns and different tones. Again, it was quite hard to capture the gesture, but it was a worthwhile experiment with the coloured pencils with the textures and tones of the fur!

Detailed sketch of Misty

Detailed sketch of Poppy

Detailed sketch of Misty

Black Bear using graphite pencil

Tiger using coloured pencils

Final drawing of Misty and Poppy
Of course, I decided on a drawing of the dogs, Misty and Poppy. This drawing took me two to three hours to complete, and surprisingly most of the time was spent on drawing the labrador! I chose pencil as my medium with a range of thicknesses, and I'm pleased with this decision as I really wanted to focus on the texture and detailed expressions of the dogs.

I think the composition could be improved as they seem too far apart, so maybe if I added some more background like leaves that might have connected them a bit more. I think I was frightened of drawing the attention away from the dogs with the busy background of Autumn leaves, so I left it quite minimal. 

The textures on the dogs was achieved by hatching, on/off pressures/fading techniques for the hairs, and by careful shading. The dark against light may be a bit much, especially for the shadowed area on Misty. But I'm quite pleased with the tones on Poppy's body, which ended up being a lot easier than with Misty as her hairs are longer and fold and protrude perhaps in a more interesting fashion. 

I think I've captured Misty's laid-back, softness in character and Poppy's alert look by their poses and by their eyes. I enjoyed drawing Poppy more, although she seemed to be more of a challenge at first. Her darker hair around her face really allowed me to show off that lovely expression full of thought! Because Misty had the sun on her face and is a much lighter colour, it was then harder to add a lot of detail to her expression, but as it is much softer than Poppy's it worked out ok. The only issue is the shadow on Misty's back behind the directional light of the sun looks quite out of place against her light colour and highlights of light. Adding shadow seems to be one of my weaknesses and something to work on! 

On a whole, I like the relaxed pose of the dogs that has been achieved and I'm glad I chose pencil for the detail it gave on their faces and for the wispy hair textures. The anatomy of the dogs looks convincing enough, too. But the things for me to work on are: composition, shadow and drawing a better background.

Final drawing of Misty and Poppy using pencils