Jax

 

5/31/25 Jax (reference photo by Katelyn This)

Although I’ve drawn plenty of dogs with their tongues lolling out, I rarely even see cats with their tongues out (given that my allergies force me to avoid cats in general). When I saw the reference photo of Jax, I knew he would be fun to draw – he was laughing at me the whole time! Even his tiny fangs are exposed!

Process notes: I worked on this portrait for short periods over the course of several days. The first day was only the basic block-in with graphite. By the end of that session, I knew something was wrong with the proportions – but I couldn’t figure out what. I didn’t get back to Jax again for several days, and when I did, I knew instantly what was wrong. It was easy to fix.

This has happened many times: If I just wait a day or two, I usually see the problem quickly. It’s important to give the brain time to process a drawing and not rush to finish when I know something isn’t right.

I remembered to show the stylus (toward the middle of the heap), which
I used to incise the paper so that whiskers will show up as white.