Da fluffies

Last week I took a break from working on a project for a client as part of my Illustration class in order to spend two nights drawing something completely different for myself. Basically, I needed a confidence boost. Something that I've realized now that I'm back at school and taking a couple art classes again is that I really enjoy learning about art, but I really hate being graded on it. I put enough pressure on myself when I draw that the added pressure from having a professor's critical voice running through my head at the same time is not super conducive to creating my best work. The useful critique comes afterward, or at defined stages in the process--not through every mark, which is where my critical thoughts have a habit of showing up. I'm kind of looking forward to showing my homework project to the clients though. Either they like it or they don't or they like someone else's better. I can work with that a lot better than: "If that ink smears now he'll give me a C, my GPA will drop, I'll lose my scholarships and have to drop out of college...." Ha. Like I said, I put a lot of pressure on myself. Bad habit, that.

So with a new sketchpad and new pens I had some fun with a giant, a shepherd and his sheep. It's not the greatest illustration, but as a starting place I'm proud of it.

How I got to the above image:
1. I drew several small, ugly doodles for a while to arrive at a concept and some ideas about composition. This is the least ridiculous-looking one in which you can at least kind of tell what I was trying to do....You may ignore my Algorithms homework. It has nothing to do with sheep.

2. I drew the illustration full-size in pencil.

3. After drawing, erasing and re-drawing all that the paper got too dirty to erase completely and look good in ink. I took a fresh sheet of paper and traced lightly over the outlines.

4. Then the rest is all pen-work. Hatching, crosshatching, stippling, any kind of mark to suggest some texture. Erase the pencil, scan it, smile.