Thursday, February 18, 2010

WIP - Elephants

African elephant mother and baby drawing in progressIncredibly, I was able to make significant progress on the elephant drawing this week, to the point where the first two individuals are essentially complete. I am saving the feet for later because I want to add foreground, probably some shallow water. I am guessing it took about four hours of work to reach this point, which is actually pretty fast for this size. I assume that is because I'm working with skin instead of fur.

I put down a light layer of 4B charcoal, thicker in the darker areas, then blend with the tortillon. Then I blend with the chamois to smooth out the marks, and repeat with more 4B and 6B until the right values are reached. Then I added wrinkles with a light 4B line and a highlight with the kneaded eraser.

There are three more elephants after these, and I will keep posting my progress.

2 comments:

paintnpencil said...

Oh they're coming along beautifully. I have never used a chamois before but will get one now and have another way of blending, thank you for sharing this with us.

Heather Ward said...

I love the chamois. It's the only tool I use for doing sky, which is so hard to get a nice, smooth value without leaving pencil marks. And once you get it covered in charcoal, you can just wash and reuse!