Preparatory Extra Drawings - Coloured Ink Crow's Feet

And to finish on for today, a plot of the colours on the feet too! One is actually more scaly than the other, it's not me running out of ink!

Preparatory Extra Drawings - A Coloured Ink Crow's Skull

Just a quick plan of colours for reference, as well as a different angle.

Preparatory Extra Drawings - A Pair of Crow's Feet!

Yes, yes, just when you thought it couldn't get any weirder! But they are very interesting to draw, and I can't help that! Although the one on the right in this picture looks much more 3D, I have to admit.

Preparatory Extra Drawings - A Crow Skull

This looks quite minimalist compared my 'freak' skull drawing in the same technique, doesn't it? The beak is actually quite dark, so I had to shade that too. I hope it's clear enough!

Preparatory Extra Drawings - Another Deer Skull

I thought that for my final piece of work I could include more from my collection of weird animals... I know that it'd be odd enough for the average person, but I'm also a vegan. Albeit one with a gothic twist. So I thought I'd just get out some of my objects to possibly include as additions in my finished piece, and have a little inky sketch. First up, there's this deer skull that you may recognise as being in one of my earlier finished pieces in the first drawing from nature section.

The Unusual Deer Skull - in Torn Paper and Ink

Here's my (huge) torn paper picture. I tore the pieces, stuck them down (I'm not sure if you can tell from a picture, but the blues are tissue paper, which made things difficult!) and when they'd dried, I scribbled over the whole thing with more ink to add details - I thought I'd hate how inaccurate this idea would be, but it was actually quite... fun?

The Unusual Deer Skull - The Close-ups Part Three

This was actually my first attempt at the ink/charcoal combination, but I've posted it third to make it easier to compare with the torn paper picture. This one is different from the other two, as I've made the background black. I chose this one as the close-up to take into the torn paper exercise partly because I could use more colours to express the darker areas and partly because if it all went wrong, it'd be more obvious what it was, being from a more straightforward angle.

The Unusual Deer Skull - The Close-ups Part Two

This is my favourite of the series. I think that for me, this is as close to perfect as I could have hoped for! The angle - the skull looking away, off the edge, left and slightly forward into the space behind it. The shadows - I improved on the combination of ink and charcoal even as I continued the series. The composition - unintentionally, as I drew, I cropped it just enough for you to see the dark in the bottom-right corner and have it balanced just right in the top-left.

The Unusual Deer Skull - The Close-ups Part One

Here's the first in a series of close-ups. I think that these three pictures are some of my best. They're ink outlines with smooth charcoal shadows, describing both the jagged edges of the bone and it's polished curves. The contrast is what really makes them - how absolutely white the left side of the picture is, and how dark the shadow under the jaw on the right. I'm so proud of them!

The Unusual Deer Skull - in Coloured Ink

I'm very happy with this one too. I thought that I'd really go out of my way and draw from a difficult, half-foreshortening angle, and spend an age mixing ink to be just the right colours. Aaand then I mixed two glasses up and did the yellow highlights on the antlers far too bright. but if you can't forgive that, then I think it's got some great shadows.

The Unusual Deer Skull - in Dramatic Coloured Pencil

Here's a picture that I think is brilliant, if I do say so myself. Having got my old lamp back, but with a stronger bulb, I thought that a good way to find some colour was to put the skull down on a bright contrast colour surface, put the lamp behind it, and draw all the colours that were revealed in the bones. They aren't exactly as the colours appeared, of course, but I'm still very proud of the whole thing. Oh, and the shadows really do begin and end that suddenly!

The Unusual Deer Skull - in Chalk Pastels

I like this chalk version much more, and not just because of learning my lesson from last time and scaling it down a little more, but because when you're using chalk, it forces you to let a little of the background colour through, and that's way more interesting. I especially like the yellowy highlights that I included thanks to having to borrow a different table lamp - normally when I draw, I like to have a white light. You'd expect any colour but white on such a subject to be included only to describe shadows, but not here!

The Unusual Deer Skull - in Oil Pastels

Another way to get some nice contrast colour is by drawing very boldly over coloured paper - this was pretty good, but why couldn't I just settle for letting the antlers go off the page a bit? They look all warped and cartoonish.

The Unusual Deer Skull - the Antlers in Coloured Pencil

Here's a more true to life depiction of the antlers in coloured pencil. I'm quite pleased with it, but on a scale - going from the bottom to the top, the less I like it. I did some great 'veiny' detail at the base, but completely lost it with the patterning towards the right tip.

The Unusual Deer Skull - the Antlers in Oil Pastels

Some more bold colour is present here with oil pastel - I did this picture both to try out some mixing of colours and to highlight the difference in the size and shape. I did a few layers of oil pastel, lightest to darkest, and then scribbled over it in pencil. I think I even went up to 8B for a bit of fun!

The Unusual Deer Skull - on the Carpet

To introduce a bit of colour, I decided that I would make the skull look almost completely white and put it onto a very colourful background. I took the pattern from the middle of the carpet in our living room. I was going to do it very bold, but after I'd done the first coat, I realised I quite liked the faded, patchy look. Not that the carpet is... very much.

The Unusual Deer Skull - Charcoal

Here's a picture inspired by a technique that I saw being used at one of my life drawing classes - cover a piece of paper with layers of charcoal, and rub out sections to create a picture like a photo negative. The placement on the paper isn't great, but it does look very noble with those long, slender antlers.

The Unusual Deer Skull - Monochrome

This is a picture I did of a deer skull that I bought. It was advertised, I thought rather unkindly, as having a 'freak' antler. It's not chipped and missing, the shorter antler here has actually grown into a strange knobbly blob. You can see the hatching technique I was talking about displayed very well here. I got so into it that I've started using my dip pens for outlines, and a scratchy drawing pen for the shading and surface detail.

The comeback - the Beginning of Ink Hatching

Well, it's been far too long since I last posted, and I've got lots to share. I'll do a little explaining first though - I've had some other studies that have been taking up my time, I went on holiday for a bit, and I also spent an age trying to decide on what to draw as the subject of my final assignment in my sketchbooks. Anyway, I've begun here with a drawing I did and completely forgot about, which is significant as a venture into a black and white shading technique I hadn't tried out on a large scale before. After this, I spent quite a while doing similar drawings in one of my books that I'm rather proud of, and after a bit of practice, in the drawings I'm posting next, I think you'll see the result.