InkTober, Week 2

 

For week 2 of InkTober, I tried to up my game by sometimes choosing more challenging reference photos. Like the cats – black cats (my double nemesis, though timely for the season). The challenge is avoiding a solid black face by retaining subtle highlights. With only two tones – black and the midtone colored paper – it’s hard to distinguish between the darkest local fur color and shading on that dark fur. The Pentel Pocket Brush Pen is better at making calligraphic line strokes than hatching large shapes. Poor Ada, a gorgeous cat in reality, took on a grumpy, gorilla look from all my bold brush pen strokes.

Overall, the dogs were much easier; a snout defines the face much more easily than the subtle forms of cats. Except for wall-eyed Fin, my unmeasured proportions are improving. I didn’t choose any solid-black dogs, however. Maybe that will be my challenge for week 3.

I’ve been sticking to my time limit of 15 minutes or less. After I feel confident about that time limit with a brush pen, I might try allowing 20 to 30 minutes and use a fountain pen to hatch. That might be a better approach with black animals.

(All InkTober reference photos were used previously for commissioned pet portraits in the past couple of years.)

Poor Ada... a wolfman cat.