Carol and Bernie

I found out my stepmom had to put her schnauzer down in November, so I decided to draw a picture of him for her for Christmas. I asked my dad for a picture and this is the one he send. It was taken qiute literally before Bernie was put down. Bernie was wearing a doctor's wristband and you could see the vet office in the backround. I can only assume Carol is crying into poor Bernie's fur. But also Bernie knew there was something up. He was at the vet, Carol was crying, and Dad was shoving a camera in his poor little face and in the original picture, Bernie was licking his lips nervously (they do that sometimes, it's called a calming signal). Of course my dad having a sense of humor, that's why he chose this picture, but I had to edit out Bernie's tongue. I couldn't stand drawing it when I knew it was a signal to those around him that he was uncomfortable. (Also, I thought it ruined the picture).

So this was a tough one. I had to make up details in Bernie's muzzle because I could only see half of it, I had to edit out the wristband (which meant more making up details), Bernie had long fur which is a bitch to draw, and then Carol had long curly hair too! Also there's that big spot in between Bernie and Carol's shoulder where everything is so dark you can't tell which is which. Which I guess isn't too hard to draw, it's just a big black mass, but I don't like doing that because I like everything to be detailed. And Bernie's eyes and right ear are much darker than the rest of the picture, I don't like that either :/ But all in all, considering how difficult a portrait this was, I think it turned out great. Carol says every time she looks at it she starts crying (which was NOT my intention! :P ) but she likes it and I'm glad :)

Carol and Bernie in graphite

Spokes

This one was another Christmas present and I just barely finished it in time! I was drawing like crazy, not just on this one but also Carol and Bernie, and Oreo. These portraits make great Christmas presents, but I have to be careful not to overload myself next year. I just barely managed to finish everything in time for Christmas.

So anyway, this is Spokes. Spokes is yet another dog waiting by Rainbow Bridge for the rest of his family to join him and Jennifer and the rest of their family miss him very much. Jennifer asked me to draw his ball too, because that's how much he loved it. In the picture she sent me, he's standing in the snow with his ball in front of him as if to say 'One more throw Mom, it's not that cold!' And despite how drawing spheres is a beginner's first lesson, I've actually never drawn one before! It was kinda interesting :) Spokes himself was easy. Being black, I didn't have to worry so much about texture. I made his edges furry to suggest the texture, but as for the rest, it was just black. The problem I had though was I had to use white as a border between dark places, like his head and back, and his face and chest. I think it turned out ok, but the light places are all weird. The light source was the top right, so the top of his head and back were supposed to be lighter and the shadow goes on the bottom left. But then under his chin is light too because I had to differentiate between his face/chin and his body! I didn't like his paws either, they didn't seem grounded and I realized why after I took this picture - his legs have shadows but his paws don't! So I put some shadows in around his feet and it looked much better after that. Unfortunately, I mailed it off before I could take a picture of the changes, so this is the only picture I have. But it doesn't look too bad:)

Spokes in graphite

Oreo

My latest picture is a cat named Oreo. I'm not sure if there's a Rainbow Bridge for cats, but if there was he'd be there. Probably sunbathing in a tree where the dogs can't bother him :) You can't tell from the drawing, but Oreo only had 3 legs. A lady named Marty asked me to draw her Oreo as a Christmas present for her husband. They both loved him very much :)

Oreo was the first cat I've drawn and I was a little nervous about it, but figured it couldn't be much different than drawing a dog or a horse. The only problem with Oreo is that he was black and white. Which isn't a problem for a cat, but makes drawing him difficult. It's hard to show the texture of the fur when the fur is really dark and it's near impossible to show any texture at all when what you're drawing is pure white. How do you depict texture without using color and turning it gray? Well, the answer I found is to leave the white white and use what's around the white to depict the texture. So the borders between the white and the black are fur-like and that suggests the rest has that texture as well. And where his white fur met the white backround, and for the shadows on his white fur, I had to make small, VERY light strokes to suggest fur. Being self-taught, I'm not sure this is the right way to go about drawing white fur, but I think it turned out nice :)

The other problem was the V on Oreo's back. I really hate drawing long fur/hair, it's a big pain in the butt. But that's probably just because I don't have much experience or practice with it yet. I like to hope it'll get easier, lol. So first I mapped out the major white areas and the major black areas. Then I kinda made the borders less obvious by mapping out some black strands in the white fur and white strands in the black fur. Once I had everything mapped out, I shaded it in and then blurred the borders even more by making strands in the white fur of different widths and various shades of gray. I also erased small hairs in the black fur, but mostly I just added black to the white. I mapped on the side of caution - it's easier to add black than to erase it! Also a side note, I used the same technique for the inside of his ears and I mapped out his white whiskers before I shaded so I could draw around them.

So all in all, I really like how this one turned out. It actually didn't take all that long for all that I was worrying about it. I would've liked to use some artistic license to take out the bump above his head and the bump behind his neck, but I drew it as I saw it *shrug*

Oreo, in graphite

A closeup of Oreo's face. The photos never seem to capture the little details that make the drawings so realistic (hey, I'm an artist, not a photographer!), so I decided to take a closeup picture

Three Dachshunds

Here's my latest picture, the three dachshunds Trish commissioned me to draw for her neighbors for Christmas. I only got Tilly's name, she's the long-haired dachshund on the right. This picture took a loong time! The did the middle dachshund first. I love how the eyes turned out in this drawing! My first really good, realistic eyes :) I did the left dachshund second. These first two were in the same picture, sitting on a couch. Tilly was in a separate picture, which was horrible. Trish was having a hard time getting a picture of her, she's a puppy and pretty much refuses to sit still. The only picture I got was really out of focus, so I had to do some research and make up the little details. I think the long hair and ears turned out really well! Long hair is hard and I don't have much experience with it. But practice makes perfect, right? :D