A duck to water

Months after I was back home after my merry trip to WI, looking over a 100 plus photos of purely Myrtle, I thought she just might be the right one to draw to enter in the Birds in Art Exhibition down the road. 

After all I had soo many interesting poses of her as she was very animated that morning on the dock. But eventually after working out the cropping and composition I decided to have her in just a simple pose looking out over the lake. 

The inital design I worked out felt very pleasing to me. Well balanced, where the viewers eye could travel around and through the drawing but was never thrown out of it. 

I made the center of interest the water below the dock. That is where the viewers eye enters, with all the dark tonal variations and large abstract shapes that lead the viewers eye right up the pole of the dock to the merganser.

The rest of the drawing I feel supports this center of interest with sharp and soft edges and value contrasts. With the absence of color I wanted to make sure that these other supports held up just as well. 

Sittin' in the Mornin' Sun  (c) 11.5x10.25

I truly enjoyed composing and drawing this piece and feel it's one of my stronger pieces in my portfolio of work. I hope to do more ducks down the road using the same design principles as Sittin' in the Mornin' Sun.

Putting values into practice

Values are critical in creating dynamic graphite drawings, as they help produce the illusion of the 3rd dimension on a 2-dimensional surface. It's one of the most important skills to learn as a realistic pencil artist to bring your drawings to life!

What are values? They are the degrees of lightness and darkness in your drawing.

When you see an egret in nature you know they are white, but they also contain a number of subtle value changes created by the sun and shadows. It's also necessary to understand the light source, taking into consideration what direction the light falls upon the egret because values change according to it's orientation to the light.

Drawing is all about being a sensitive observer. At times values can be very misleading. they can create an optical illusion to an untrained eye. But when you have mastered the value scale and incorporated it into your drawing, your work will be a ginormous success!