This has to be the longest project I've done so far in class. This took about two weeks to complete with lots of revision and painstaking detail that taught me a lesson I won't soon forget about pencil. This project entailed snapping a photo of our pet and recreating it in some medium, which proved to be easier for others since most of their projects were pet portraits. I thought this would be simple, and I was actually excited for it as I pride myself on being good with drawing animals. They were what I started with, and I've been practicing everything from cats to dogs to birds since middle school began. However, the difficulty was in choosing pencil as my medium. Just pencil. It was something I worked with rarely, simply because I found it difficult, so I thought combining the two would balance it out and give me more practice with the stubborn medium. Unfortunately that was not the case.
I started out with the first picture of my dog at a weird angle facing the camera, and the result was less than pleasant. His head was lopsided, the perspective was off, and the teacher described my strokes and shading as too loose and scribble-like, which it was. I felt devastated. I had worked for two days on this, and nothing was making it better. Which is when I asked for help. First, the teacher looked at my reference picture and suggested I take another one. The only issue is that my dog refuses to stay still. He's the jitteriest thing and even when he is sitting, the pictures came out blurry, like he's in a constant state of vibration. I called on my mom for help getting him still, so we used his one true weakness; food. Mom took a dog treat and held it closed in her hand as she gave the command "sit." My dog immediately rolled back and practically slammed down on the floor in his eagerness. That was as still as I could get him. So I printed the picture out and took it from there. The next day in class I cut a new piece of paper to start with. But before I worked on the final, my teacher suggested I practice drawing it in my sketchbook. I spent time trying out getting his head shape, mussel length, and paws right, and practiced fur detailing, which is a very monotonous process involving small strokes and flicks with the pencil that are slowly layered into a more detailed picture. Afterwards, I shifted to the final canvas. I spend a while placing down the basic shapes to form my dog around, and after perfecting the position of his head, I started with the outlines. With quick strokes as instructed to simulate fur, I sketched out the basic outlined before moving in with a darker pencil to detail the shadows. I worked out from there, dark to light, with varying shades of pencils to add more detail and effect. This is what took most of my time. I layered and layered, showed it to my teacher, who then told me to keep layering. Rinse and repeat for about a week and a half until I decided he was layered enough. Though my teacher also suggested I add a background to cover the blank white space. I had honestly not thought about it, I just figured leaving the page blank would be satisfactory, but in the end I did decide to recreate what was visible of the kitchen from the picture's perspective with painstaking effort put into making sure the wood lines when the right way to make good perspective. At long last, it was finally done. And I can say I have never been so pleased with a final than this. Maybe it's because of the rough start or the fact that so much work went into this one, but this is the best drawing of my dog I've ever done, and I feel like I really earned this picture this time. I learned in the end, to never underestimate pencil. Never.
I started out with the first picture of my dog at a weird angle facing the camera, and the result was less than pleasant. His head was lopsided, the perspective was off, and the teacher described my strokes and shading as too loose and scribble-like, which it was. I felt devastated. I had worked for two days on this, and nothing was making it better. Which is when I asked for help. First, the teacher looked at my reference picture and suggested I take another one. The only issue is that my dog refuses to stay still. He's the jitteriest thing and even when he is sitting, the pictures came out blurry, like he's in a constant state of vibration. I called on my mom for help getting him still, so we used his one true weakness; food. Mom took a dog treat and held it closed in her hand as she gave the command "sit." My dog immediately rolled back and practically slammed down on the floor in his eagerness. That was as still as I could get him. So I printed the picture out and took it from there. The next day in class I cut a new piece of paper to start with. But before I worked on the final, my teacher suggested I practice drawing it in my sketchbook. I spent time trying out getting his head shape, mussel length, and paws right, and practiced fur detailing, which is a very monotonous process involving small strokes and flicks with the pencil that are slowly layered into a more detailed picture. Afterwards, I shifted to the final canvas. I spend a while placing down the basic shapes to form my dog around, and after perfecting the position of his head, I started with the outlines. With quick strokes as instructed to simulate fur, I sketched out the basic outlined before moving in with a darker pencil to detail the shadows. I worked out from there, dark to light, with varying shades of pencils to add more detail and effect. This is what took most of my time. I layered and layered, showed it to my teacher, who then told me to keep layering. Rinse and repeat for about a week and a half until I decided he was layered enough. Though my teacher also suggested I add a background to cover the blank white space. I had honestly not thought about it, I just figured leaving the page blank would be satisfactory, but in the end I did decide to recreate what was visible of the kitchen from the picture's perspective with painstaking effort put into making sure the wood lines when the right way to make good perspective. At long last, it was finally done. And I can say I have never been so pleased with a final than this. Maybe it's because of the rough start or the fact that so much work went into this one, but this is the best drawing of my dog I've ever done, and I feel like I really earned this picture this time. I learned in the end, to never underestimate pencil. Never.