Frisbee Dog | Graphite on Paper
One of my dogs, Zip, is obsessed with 2 things in life: food and anything thrown. I used to think her love was exclusive to tennis balls, but over the years I’ve learned that not unlike her willingness to eat anything thrown into her food bowl, she will retrieve anything thrown across her yard. The day she trained me to sling a frisbee was a fond day indeed… for both of us. It’s her insatiable drive (dare I say “lust”?) to retrieve that inspired this drawing of Frisbee Dog.
No, this is not Zip, but the reference photo captures all the key elements of a dog in motion doing her thing. The face is particularly tricky, in large part because it’s obscured and squinty, which mutes distinguishing features like eyes and ears. But you gotta love the open mouth and all those frisbee hungry teeth!
The gallery includes a reference photo and two versions of the drawing. Granted, the drawing is a rough study and not intended to be a refined composition, I thought it was interesting to see how different photo settings can change the look and feel of a piece of art. Using the same source photo of the final drawing, one is set to sharper detail while the other uses a soft setting to remove some of the detail of the pencil strokes. Bear in mind this drawing is done in my sketch book on thin, see-through pages; there’s not a lot of teeth in the paper, thus the relatively rough nature of the drawing. Also, the entire piece was done with only 3 pencils – 2B, HB, and H.
I think this type of subject would make for a good painting.
I’ll try a few more drawings of frisbee dogs and then make the jump to the canvass.
Frisbee Dog Reference Photo 
Frisbee Dog Sharp 
Frisbee Dog Soft
Art Bern 