Drawing Lady

This drawing hub is about a dog named Lady and according to Cindy, her owner, Lady was a very special dog and will be missed!

As in all of my drawing hubs, the first thing to do is find a good reference photo. I had a nice selection of photos, but had to change the background. So the reference photo you see here is a combination of two.

Once you get your workspace set up, round up all of the drawing supplies you might need. I use a mechanical pencil with a .5 soft lead. Using a mechanical pencil over a conventional one is so much easier and doesn't leave the mess.

Two other requirements are a good eraser and some kind of blending tool. I use a soft kneaded eraser and a tortillion for blending. The gummy kneaded eraser doesn't leave all the little crumbs to clean up and little to no residue on your drawing paper. Once you get all of the pencil marks where they need to go, blending will make the drawing look more realistic. So I use a tortillion as I said. A tortillion looks like a pencil with no lead. It is a tightly rolled soft paper coming to a point. You hold it just like a pencil and smudge the pencil marks to shade the drawing.

Now, get comfortable and make an "outline" of your picture very lightly on the page.

Always begin adding detail on the opposite side of the hand you are drawing with. I am right handed so I always start on the left side of the page. The reason I do this is because my large hands will smudge the pencil marks as I lay them down on the page. So beginning on the left will eliminate most of this.

In the first 4 frames below, I began adding some detail to the grass and plants to the left of Lady. Then I moved up a little higher and started with the trees. The trees in this drawing are a little difficult, so I took my time.

Once I get some of the detail in place, I couldn't keep from working on our main attraction. Lady is mostly white with some shading and spots. I had to be careful not to make her too dark. So at first I sketched lightly and went back later to add darker shading.

In frame 4, you can see a picture of the eraser i use. I had to remove some of the pencil marks.

The next block of pictures are mainly working on the details of Lady, our main subject. After I get a good outline of her I focus on the darker areas. I chose to begin just below her neck and slowly move to her back and eventually getting to the legs.

In this group of pictures you can see the result of using a tortillion. All you have to do is put down the pencil marks and you can actually draw with the tortillion. It picks up your pencil and you can use that to do some of the shading.

I kept working on Lady for the next set of frames. But during this I decided to move back up top and work on some of the water and trees. The water is hard to make it look realistic, so focus on the light and dark shadows. Just go in and copy what you see in the reference photo. Once you get all of the pencil marks in place, Use your tortillion to blend it together. This takes some practice, so go nice and slow.

An important note here, always lay some paper down if you are laying your hand on the drawing. I put some paper down over Lady when I was working above her.

For the rest of the frames you can see as I began to sweep to the right. I just kept adding details as I saw them on the reference photo.

This drawing took a few nights to complete because of the detail in the trees and water. Lady was relatively easy, it was the background that took the time.

The next set of pictures are the completed drawing next to the reference photo so you can see a good comparison.

If you have a drawing challenge, or want a portrait of you or a loved one, contact me through my website at http://www.soulreflectionsbyjeff.com/