tiger pencil drawing-more progress

Just a quick update on yesterdays work.Ive finally put the eye in as i think most of the work is now complete on the tiger's head apart from a few tweaks once ive finished the whole image.More layering on the body of the cat has allowed me to start adding in some fur details,plenty more to do.

tiger pencil drawing-back after the break

After an extended xmas lay off it's been back to the drawing board today.Just for now ive finished work on the tiger's head and ive been busy building up layers of graphite on the body of the cat.Some of the stripes have been marked in and layers of H,HB,B pencil built up in some areas of the body,there is much to do in terms of building up the shape and form of the cats body with further layers before adding some fur detail.i took this photo this morning whilst the light was still good in order that the different layers so far added could be seen.in the upper half of the body i have layered with H,HB and B grades and now am overlayering with another layer of H grade as i wanted to 'calm down' the texture a little,whilst in the lower half i have so far only layered with H and HB grades.it isnt the most exciting part of completing the drawing and will take several more sessions but absolutely fundamental to achieving a realistic look with depth and texture in the finished piece.

tiger pencil drawing-progress

i have now completed the second ear and some of the 'white' areas of the tigers face,using layers of graphite from H grade right through to 2B in some areas adding shadow tone and fur details.before completing the last white fur area i want to add tone to the neck and body of the cat so that the white area will stand out a little and i can work out the final tones for that area.To that end ive layed down a base layer of H grade pencil and am slowly working my way down the drawing.

tiger pencil drawing-update on progress

Ive just today managed to get back to this tiger drawing after having to take a couple of days out with a nasty cold,i'm feeling relatively human again and so ive cracked on with this one.After having put more layers into the fur and more or less reached the final tone here i can see that i'm probably going to have to tone the background a little more to ensure the cat stands proud.ive added in some fur details using a 2B pencil and added more soft graphite to the dark stripes with a 5B pencil,ive also layed in some tone to the light areas of the cats face with an H grade pencil which will require more tone adding as well as some fur detail suggestions to help give shape and form to the cats face.The whiskers have come in for a bit of refinement,they were a bit too long,i got carried away scratching them in,so ive shortened them a little and when i add more tone to the background i'll refine them further.

tiger pencil drawing-work in progress

Slow progress i'm afraid at the moment due to a bad case of 'man flu' hampering my concentration.Ive made a start on the tiger by blocking in the darkest stripes on the cats head,these alone take a little while to do as each one is a combination of layers of graphite working from H grade right through to 5B to get the really deep blacks.ive completed one ear and the nose of the animal and have layed in the base coat of H grade pencil for the facial fur.The next stage will be to further layer the fur with HB and B grade pencils before working in the fur detail with B and 2B grades.

tiger pencil drawing-background progress

Several more layers of graphite later and the background toning is almost complete.There are repeated layers of HB and B grade pencils applied here along with variances in pressure on the pencil to create a sort of blurry semi-photographic look to the background which will help to 'lift' the image slightly.A final layering using a 2B pencil in some areas has added the darkest tones.There may be more tone to be added but for now i'll move onto the cat and adjust tones if necessary later.

tiger pencil drawing-work in progress

My latest drawing is to be of a tiger.Here the basic building blocks of all my artworks have been started,the layering.Ive already at this point spent a whole day laying down layers of H and HB grade pencil and have made a start on the third layer of B grade pencil.I want to go for a sort of blurry toned background here once again to really lift the tiger from the page especially around the white areas.This,as regular followers of my blog will know,is a very time consuming part of the process but absolutely vital to get a good finish.I'm likely to be working on the background alone for several more days before i can start to get my teeth into the tiger itself.it's quite a large piece this time and so is likely to be the last one completed this year.i shall post more progress once the background is a little more complete but i thought it might be of interest to those keen to know about technique.

curlew drawing-a few last minute tweaks

As usual i left the drawing on the board overnight and had a look with fresh eyes this morning.i had been a little concerned that the rump of the bird had got a little lost in the background and so on looking this morning i decided to lift out some highlights along the edges as well as adding a little more highlighting to the loose feather edges on the birds nape and bill.it's a little bit of artistic licence but i think it's worked out ok and has served to just bring the bird out a little more.

Curlew drawing finished

I'm calling this one finished,completed this morning after some final tweaks.The objective here was to try and capture the sense of strong morning sunshine on the bird and it's surroundings and the lovely play of light and shadows on the curlew's plumage.I leave it to you to decide if you think it's worked.