Monday 17 August 2009

chocolate lab commission


its taken a little while to get the outline sketch for this one how i wanted it but finally i'm able to make a start on the labrador.as you can see i'm basically layering the animal using grades of pencil ranging from H to 2B grades.i have worked up a darker part of the dogs face to near completion just to set one of the darkest tones in the piece which will enable me to judge other tones throughout the drawing.the labradors coat is quite shiny so setting a dark value helps when trying to complete the subtle shading in other areas particularly those with quite heavy gloss to them.its important for me to set this dark tone at the outset then hopefully i wont overwork other areas making them too dark.

2 comments:

Wendy Mould AFCA said...

Clive,
I am looking forward to seeing this drawing as it progresses. I know how hard those solid colored dogs can be to draw. The subtle tones are so important.

Unknown said...

i couldn't have put it better myself wendy,your absolutely right,i find i have to build up tones very gingerly with these for fear of over-doing it with lots of tweaking here and there untill it looks right.