on an enforced break

Scottish blackface and lamb

ring tailed lemur

bengal tiger cub

young giraffe

Some of you may have wondered why no update on the serval image?

unfortunately i have been forced to take a break from drawing for a little while due to a recurrence of a back problem caused by long hours sitting at the drawing board.it's a hazard of the job for me and whilst daily exercise and the occasional massage normally keep me in fine fettle every once in a while i require a bit of attention from an osteopath and a few days rest.i hope to be back at the board very soon as i get bored very quickly when i cant work.in the meantime for those of you eager to see some finished works ive posted some older images not featured on my blog before

Serval portrait

This is the start of my latest drawing a Serval portrait.They are such elegant cats,slim and long limbed with large ears,perfectly designed for hunting small mammals within the tall grasses of the african plains.
With this piece,as in my last tiger drawing,ive started by laying down some background toning,not too dark at this stage so that i can fiddle later.As with all my cat pictures i shall be starting by drawing the ears,simply because i find them the most difficult part of the drawing to get right and will be spending hours trying to get a good detailed representation.In the case of the serval ,with it's very large ears it will take me even longer than normal i fear till i'm happy with them.

bengal tiger cub completed

Finished the tiger cub today,i'll leave him on the drawing board overnight in case i spot any 'tweaking' opportunities once i look at it with fresh eyes.

Bengal tiger cub update

Although there's not a lot of apparent difference since my last posting there is some significant work gone into the image over the past couple of days.the most noticeable part being the fully worked up forelimb and rear quarters of the cub to the left hand side.i have now begun to build up tone on the body of the cub and as you can see several layers of graphite have been laid down already from H grade thru to B grade so far ,with stripes also beginning to be plotted in.you can see on this example how the correct tones,shape and form is produced by layering and the fur detail added pretty much at the last moment,sometimes if the fur looks a bit harsh i'll 'knock it back' a little by over-layering with a hard grade such as H or HB.Ive left the long hairs on the side of the tigers face for later as they're light toned and i wanted to establish the darker tone of the body fur first as well as the general outline of the face.i shall have to adjust the background toning above the tigers body as ive trimmed him down just a little,hence the white area between body and background.it is quite normal during the drawing process for me to perform minor alterations here and there and luckily layering gradually from lighter pencil grades gives me plenty of time to spot and rectify areas i'm not totally happy with.

Bengal tiger cub update

I have now almost finished the tigers face,obviously the eyes will be left till last as usual.i am now working up some of the darker areas under the chin and around the edge of the face to give some definition to the outer, longer, more wispy fur layers at the extremities of the tiger's face.once ive completed the areas around it's face i can then erase in some of the longer hairs so that they overlap the body fur and look more realistic.similarly on the left hand side of the image i will tidy up the longer hairs so that they look more natural,this again will involve darkening the background tone and erasing in some finer hairs.

Bengal tiger cub progress

One half of the cubs face is very nearly complete now.it will require a little tweaking later but i'm happy to leave it as is for now.I shall move onto the opposite side of the face tomorrow.I think the background toning will require darkening once again to ensure the tiger's face stands proud of the picture but once again i'll leave that till nearer completion so that i only have to darken once more and i can tidy up the hairs at the outer edges of the face at the same time.

Bengal tiger cub progress

Ive darkened the background tone a touch and then proceeded onto the tiger itself.Whenever i draw big cats i always start with the ears,i think it's because it's the most difficult part to draw and they take me forever untill i'm happy.The stripes have been darkened up and layers of tone added to the cats face.on top of this i have rendered the fur pattern and then ive overlayered several times with harder graphite and a few softer areas just so the fur isnt too prominent or workmanlike.i will be moving focus from the nose of the tiger to it's cheeks next,working one side at a time starting with darkening up the facial stripes.

Starting new drawing

This is the early stages of my latest drawing of a bengal tiger cub.As you can see i have drawn the outline of the animal and plotted the stripes and added some tone to them and the ears.i am now working up the background tone fairly loosely with layers starting with H then HB and B so far.i want to get the background tone set early on as this will determine the tonal range for the rest of the piece.