Monday, January 19, 2009

Bobcat Finished

bobcat charcoal drawingHere he is, my first drawing of the new year. I met this bobcat on a recent visit to the local wildlife hospital and rescue center. Most of the animals there were being rehabilitated after injuries or being raised as orphans. The four adult bobcats were healthy enough to return to the wild, but they had been "humanized" - meaning they associate humans with food and shelter. Instead of being set free, the two pairs stay as foster parents to any orphaned or injured baby bobcats to minimize human contact. I will be donating a portion of my profit of sales of the original and limited edition prints to The Wildlife Center of New Mexico where this cat lives.

8 comments:

Glendon Mellow said...

Phenomenal!

By the way, I am loving your calendar! Hanging in my office.

Heather Ward said...

Wow, that was you? Thank you so much! I'm glad you like it.

Unknown said...

Wow you have done a beautiful job and congratulations on donating to a worthy cause! How do you get your scans to come out so well?

Heather Ward said...

Thank you, PamYla. I've donated to rescue organizations before, but this is the first local one.

I scan my drawings on my old HP multifunction printer. Since the printheads died, it's pretty much useless now for anything other than scanning, but it's a great scanner. Since the bed is small, I usually have to scan my work in two or three passes and paste them together in Gimp (free Photoshop equivalent). I scan about 300ppi for making prints, then reduce the size and resolution for posting online.

Unknown said...

Beautiful drawing Heather. Are you planning on turning this into a painting down the road?

Heather Ward said...

Thanks Brenda. No, I wasn't planning on painting this. I don't know how to paint. Not to say I won't try at some point in the future, though.

Anonymous said...

It took me almost 5 minutes to realize that this was the charcoal drawing you were talking about and not a photograph used to draw it from. Amazing realism in the eyes especially. Wow!

Heather Ward said...

Thank you, Anonymous. That's the look I was going for!