Sunday, October 19, 2008

"Never give up on a problem drawing"



I learned a tremendous amount doing this drawing. This was my first time trying to make something look as though it were in mist. I had a few reference photos of other subjects in mist I had found on the internet to look at, which helped tremendously. It was actually easier than I thought it would be. I used a small amount of my 2h and hb pencils then used a blending stump to smooth it out. Then went back in and darkened the edges where I wanted.

I ended up putting this drawing away for a while because I got stuck on it. There was a different type of grass under the coyote in my reference photo, which I took at the Wildlife Museum( Yes, he was stuffed). It was more like a lot of sticks he was in and when I got to a certain point in my drawing I didn't like the way the sticks looked. It was confusing and the other grass looked much nicer compared to the sticks. I erased about a quarter of my drawing which I usually never do but, in the end I was glad I did. After erasing I went back and drew the grass back in. I was happy with it after that and finished the drawing.

One of the biggest lessons I learned was that a drawing not going so well can be saved. There was a time when I would have put the drawing away and never went back to it. I made myself pick it back up again and erase hours and hours of work and it was the best thing I had ever done. I now know that you can learn a lot from your mistakes and problem areas in you work. It was well worth the effort.

Till next time!

4 comments:

Gina Perry said...

Hey Jennie! Your work is beautiful!!! I'm so impressed, it's really fantastic stuff. Glad to see you've started a blog - I'll be sure to pop back and see what you're up to!

Grahame Butler said...

Hi I found your blog via Terry Millers blog site, love your work, very interesting on how you achieved the misty effect. Grahame

Jennie Norris said...

Thanks Grahame, Glad you like my work. Always nice to here! I found your blog a while back through Terry's also. I check in to see what you're up to every now and then. Tried to leave you a comment a while back on some of your drawings but, I'm on a Macintosh and comments don't always work, although It's been better lately. I loved the Morning Walk Series you did. The contrast was very eye catching, and they have a lot of depth to them, I feel like I could just walk right in.
Thanks again, Jennie

Grahame Butler said...

Thanks for your comments about my blog, I have a photo of a Red Fox Im hoping to draw in the next few days, I'll be very happy if it's half as good as yours...