For all the dog lovers out there!
Sketched with 2B, HB, and 4B pencils. Quick, loose style done in 20 minutes.
I didn’t have a reference photo, but rather was inspired by a small painting by an artist I really like, Kanna Aoki. The palette she uses is very bright and vibrant, but she’s masterful at capturing that magical California lighting in landscapes.
Today’s sketch is one of my dogs, Boom, curled into his comfy dream ball position. Always amazes me that a 60 pound dog can curl up like this. This is a 20 minute sketch done from the couch. I had to go fast because despite how soundly he sleeps, mind you he’s deaf, he has a creepy sixth sense that tells him when he’s being stared at. Invariably, when I try to draw him, he always moves before I have enough on he paper to improvise. Tonight, however, he waited long enough for me to get the outline down, after which he only moved his head a few times.
Boom is all black, so the use of hair direction and basic values was important to make this work. I’m happy with it as a quick sketch b/c it really captures the essence of Boom curled in a ball. I tried this a year ago and it didn’t go well, which reminded me that it can be rewarding to go back to an old subject and see if it’s easier the second time around.
The outline was done with an HB pencil; everything else was 2B.
A few posts ago I had declared a drawing of one of my dogs completed, but was drawn back in. I didn’t like the floating head look and wanted to fix that problem. With some guidance from my drawing teacher (thanks again Laurie!), I got to the finish line with a drawing that I’m proud to hang on the wall.
Some significant enhancements: 1) added the wood floor, 2) a plain rug, 3) darkened some of the darkest areas of her face with an ebony pencil, and lastly 4) added a light cast shadow.
With a close-up of a dog face under my belt, it was time to tackle a different perspective. This is my mom’s dog, Dixie, in full dream mode. She’s very camera shy, so this is as good as reference photos get for her.
First session lasted a couple of hours, but only after having done an initial reference sketch, which helped get the difficult curled up shape and proportions of body parts just so. Once I had this much done I had to give my arm a break. All those hairs start to drive you nuts. Pretty good start, but a little creepy since she’s floating on the page. 
Another session, probably 90 minutes, got the obvious dog bed in place, but also worked the ebony pencil to get the values right on the folds of Dixie’s coat. 
Pretty happy with the final composition. I’m genuinely surprised at how quickly this came together. There were 3 big challenges with this drawing.
1. The face and general complexity of dog parts involved in a curled canine. But the reference photo was really washed out for the face, so I had to draw what I knew was there rather than just what I saw, b/c I knew what I was looking at was wrong.
2. The hair is much different compared to my previous effort with Zip’s dog face. The strokes are longer and thinner. It was also very tricky to get the white dotted pattern and random splotches in some places just right. Used a 2B for most of the hairs, but in some spots experimented with an HB.
3. The values on a curled up dog SUCK! I’d love to blame it on the lighting in the photo, but even if the lighting was studio quality, I’m pretty sure the challenge of gradating values to show the change in depth in the curled center area would be the same. But I got it to a good point and decided I better leave it alone.
Overall very happy with this one. I’ll have to do a similar composition of my dogs curled on their beds.
So it may not look like much was done between the last post of Zip’s face, which I’ve decided to call “Play with me?”, but I spent a couple of short sessions trying to get the shading just right so the composition has more depth. I think I’ve taken it as far as I can and ready to move on, although my drawing instructor (Laurie) may have something else to say about that, but I’m really happy with it for my first real effort at a dog face drawing. Now I have 2 other dogs who are jealous and ready for their turn in the studio.
For those interested in the technical details:
