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. |
Love Groot, and that's a fine example of how much can be expressed with so little. I had an internet friend who, like you, found sketching black animal exceedingly challenging but she wanted to master it. So I sent her various photos of my black Labrador to practice on. She ended up sending me her final sketch - done in colored pencil on toned paper after in progress consultations with me to fine tune it - and I have to say she captured my lovely Jesse perfectly. Including her blaze orange color really made the sketch sing. The brown toned paper became the highlights and black colored pencil used lightly and judiciously. Yes, you think you need to boldly blacken in everything but if you do you end up with nothing. I had it professionally framed, hanging it in my studio to keep me company now that the real thing is gone.
ReplyDelete