lynx

[nikia]

I drew this for practice on animals and to see if I could still do it. The composition isn't too good on it, as it was only supposed to be a lynx head. However I had to fill in the blank spaces around it, so threw in the roses. The lynx is drawn from a ref photo in a book. I had a lot of help on this one from the middle class members. Thanks for all your help middle class. :D Any crits and comments always appreciated for future use folks. I really need to know how bad or good this is.

[simmi]

I like it :D . Any chance to see the ref?

[EarthClimber]

VERY GOOD, I like it a lot. Could you tell me what art supplies you used to draw the picture? I would greatly appreciate it, thank you and keep drawing-peace

[nikia]

Hey simmi. Thanks. Yeah, here's the ref. It was pretty hard to draw from. Being so small I couldn't see much detail. So I improvised in places. :D This is larger than the actual photo.

[nikia]

EarthClimber, Thanks I appreciate your taking time to comment on this. I used graphite on the lynx: h for the line drawing, then various others for the hair, depending what values I needed. Altogether, I used, h, 3b, b, hb, and f, graphite pencils. I also used the h pencil on some of the lighter hairs. The wild roses were done with prismacolors and mostly 3b and hb graphite. I blended those with a smudge stick, lifted some of the graphite with scotch tape, then used a cream colored prismacolor over the flowers and leafs to smooth and lighten it a bit. I didn't use the tape or cream prismacolor on the inside of the roses as I wanted to keep them dark. The bluish tint on the white area of the picture is due to my digi camera, it's not in the actual drawing.

[EarthClimber]

Cool, thanks for telling me what you used...so far the only art supplies i have used are a pen,pencil,color pencils and an eraser:( I dont know what kind of things people use.

[nikia]

Well, add to that, paints of all different kinds, such as acrylics, oils, egg tempura, watercolor, etc. You can also get watercolor pencils. Which act something like watercolors, pens of all different kinds again. Inks. Basically it's all up to your imagination. Try different things, experiment. It's what makes art fun. Even try combining different things. Also try different erasers, both for highlighting and erasing. I use staedtler for an eraser a lot. (it's a white one) It's easy on the paper. I've heard of something called "blue tac" supposed to be good for lifting graphite, but I can't get it here in Canada. As for paper, if you're just learning, any old paper will do. Other than that it's personnel preference, or depends on what you're planning on using it for. Experiment here also until you find something you like, or ask someone in an art store, what's the best for what you plan on doing with it. Hope this helps some Earthclimber. Good luck.:)

[Zebz]

That turned out amazing Nikia! Great job! The texture of the hair and flowers is wonderful. I could almost touch it! My only crit is mainly the composition. The flowers/color at the bottom of the page make the image seem bottom heavy. They draw your eye. Something in the opposite corner may help eliminate that. But great job overall it looks absolutely great! Just toy with some various composition ideas maybe. Keep it up! Best work thus far from you!

Ryan

[nikia]

You're 100% right on the composition ZebzFree. I wasn't interested in the composition when I started this one. My main focus was to see if I could still draw the wildlife like I used to. I'm still testing to find my weak areas, artwise. The flowers were added as an afterthought because the page looked too empty. :D

So far, I've found my weak areas to be: compositon, (funny it never used to be a problem, but seems to be really bad now.) My animal anatomy isn't quite right. I've especially forgotten exactly how the nose and eyes are on various animals should look, plus somewhat weak on chest areas and feet. However it's nice to know I can still make my animals look like they are alive and about to walk off the page.

I think I will be doing a lot of animal studies for a while, until I can once again draw them without using a ref. I will be mixing these in with people studies, because I seem to have some weak areas there as well. Compositon will come later I think.

Thanks for taking time out to comment ZebzFree. It helps a get deal. You're the only one that has mentioned the composition, but it was always a weak area right from the start of this drawing, I'm surprised no one else has mentioned it.