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