Rat Tales

This little critter looks like he's got a story to tell (well, he does to me) so I called this sketch "Rat Tales".  It's from Drawspace.com Lesson # I07 - Rocky Rodent.   I'm still not too hot with the fur and shading... but I suppose it's progress. My original is done on 9X12 inch, 90lb Canson Classic Cream drawing paper. Heavyweight, medium tooth surface good for charcoal, pastel, pencil and pen. So says Canson anyway. My sig, date, etc. in the corner was done with PSP X2 after I edited the scan for brighness, contrast, fading and clarity - not to mention that I had to remove unwanted shadows - again. The only way to not have the darned shadows would be to scan the page after removing it from the sketch pad. I don't have any good place to store loose sketches, so I don't do many of them like that.

Three Skulls, after Cézanne

My version of Cézanne's famous painting. You can see the original here: http://www.artic.edu/aic/collections/artwork/80336 (well, okay, that's really just a more accurate reproduction of the famous painting), you'd have to go to Chicago to see the real deal. Mine is Graphite on Mead Academie heavyweight sketchbook paper. Roughly 7.25 inches high by 11 inches wide.

My brain must have been on vacation when I watermarked this... It's among drawings I did late in 2008, not a 2009 effort.  My sketch book tells the truth... when I bother to date the work.

Scruffy Puppy

This lesson builds on the lesson in the previous post. For comparison purposes, here's my finished sketch.  My husband says he looks like a scruffy puppy, so I called this sketch "Scruffy". The original is 9 inches X 9 inches, graphite on 45lb paper.... yep another page in the same sketch book I used for the first sketch.  To preserve the integrity of my first sketch, I made a photo copy of that sketch and then traced it onto another page and then continued with the advanced lesson T05  Isaac from Drawspace.com.  He's cute - and looks like a dog somewhat, but certainly not like little Isaac in the lesson... And instead of bothering with color for this sketch, I think I'll move on to something different... maybe try Isaac some other time, after my skill set has been enhanced by other lessons.