Arctic Fox

[lene]

Hi
I wanted to keep the pastels warm for another drawing, this time an arctic fox.
The first pic is my drawingtable with some reference-materials. I have my own photos: fox from zoo + snow-pictures from Norway, a book on habitat and "National Geographic" article on the arctic fox.
I did some thumbnail-drawings, trying different compositions etc. I decide a vertical size, 3-divided and with background capturing winter. The coat of the fox on my photos was in a stage between winter and spring, white enough to put in snow I found. Also I connect this animal so much with snowy surroundings ;)
second pic is the final drawing. I tried to "frame" and "point" with the stone and trees/bushes. The upper left corner left empty for a space to rest your eye.
C & C welcome

[lene]

.. just forgot; grey velourpaper size: 8.4 x 9.6 inches ;)

[Rollow]

Hi Lene,

Absolutely great. Love your tight composition, keeping the focus on the wolf, and also a great job on the fur.

Ron

[Amazingreys]

I love seeing your research and thumbnails laid out as well! Is this also a mix of soft pastels and pastel pencils? :clap:

[Dorell]

Your fox is beautiful :clap:
and I love all the blues and violets in the surrounding snow. And the little bit of yellowish colour in the sunlit bit of fur on the left of the body is great. I'd like a little bit more of the yellow on the fox, but that's probably just me :o .
I kindof think the base of the fox might look a little 'floaty', and could do with a deeper shadow around the tail area to hold him down a bit more. What do you think?

Dorell.

[lene]

thanks for looking and comments :)
Ron, I do prefer a tight composition, as the animal is the major element I really like to draw ;)
Dana, this is a mix of soft pastels and pastelpencils. No hard pastels. I used more of the soft pastel compared to the Brown Bear (Picking Scent-thread) to lay down larger basic colors. And then pencils for more details. :)
Dorell, I agree on the idea of applying heavier shadows beneath the fox to ground him more. I'll look into that. :) The yellow is more visual in the real drawing - lost some subtle colors in the scan, and I'll keep it at that, but I still appreaciate you saying so ;)

[Katherine]

Just lovely, lene! I love the colors in the shadows. Super painting.

[Debee]

Very lovely. I'm usually in the CP area, but since my friend Katherine is new to ST I'm lurking in the pastel area to see what she's up to. I don't want to be so bold to post a critique, but I have taken your fox and played with it for some MINOR tweeking. Are you interested. Katherine knows me well enough to know that I have to clamp my hand over my mouth sometimes. But she has gotten use to my knit picking .... I hope :eek: :D :bye1:

[Brenda]

Beautiful, Lene! Thanks for showing us your planning stage. You went to a lot of work and it shows. Really nice!

[lene]

Hi
thanks Katherine, Deebee and Brenda :)
Yes, Deebee, please post your comments and ideas ;)

[lucky]

Another really nice one Lene! I like the lighting and composition a lot. I like what Dorell had to say about grounding him more and maybe adding some more warmth on the left side. My screen is really bad so I might not be seeing things right, are there lots of colors in the shadowed side or mostly grays?

I really like seeing all your sketches and how you worked it all out too! :D

[lene]

thanks Lucky :) I suppose you mean the shadowed side of the fox ? It is white, grey and blue/violet

[lucky]

Ahhhhh, yes now I'm on a better monitor and I can see more colors and more yellows on the left too, which look really nice.

I was just wondering, and I might be totaly wrong! So just ignore me if I am... If maybe his back thats dark gray now would have maybe some lighter values of gray or even other lighter colors in it if he was in the snow since the snow would reflect lots of white??? But I'm not sure, just a thought. He is so sweet looking!

[Debee]

Sorry about not getting back to you. Hubby is using computor a lot at night.
I know some of my editing is not the greatest, its hard to get the right color and place it where you want it. The tweaking that I'm seeing is just that tweaking. This is a very nice work.
Starting with area A I feel the back shape was too straight. I tired to create a little more curved line the edge.

Area B is basically the same observation. Fur looks somewhat "halo like" so moving the snow in some and the hair out some to create a little more irregular line movement.

Area C This area would take VERY little, but also is a VERY tricky spot. But feel that the space looks like it is part of the animal and not behind the animal. You are seeing the snow under and beyond the fox. I don't have it right here because I ran out of time. But if the bottom of this shape were a little darker in value and the top of the shape a little lighter it could give more of a feeling of depth. Just a few strokes could make a difference.

Green arrows Like the others have said. He needs to be grounded just a little bit more. Darker shadow closer to the body and becoming lighter as it moves outward. The other green arrows around the body are areas that I see that you have stopped the shadows from going behind the fox and that greats a kind of halo effect as well.

These things are just very minor things, but I feel could make a difference. :bye1:

[lene]

thanks Lucky and Debee
Debee, I agree with most of your observations :) - thanks
The only one I won't touch is the B -area, which I feel looks okay, it should be a halo-effect as he has the light hitting there.
The A-area I think you are right, a bit more curving and fur effect.
the C-area could be fixed also ;)
I'll get to it as soon as possible ;)

[lene]

Hi
here is an altered version of the drawing with darker shadows beneath the fox, a rounder more furry looking back and the spot between his front leg and tail applied color.... Post both drawings to see difference ;)

forgot to mention earlier. in the future when drawing a whole animal I think I'll prefer a larger paper. In this scale, I find it difficult to reach the kind of details I really adore :cool:

[lucky]

Hey Lene,
I really like what you've done with the shadow under his tail, and breaking up the fur of his back. I think it looks great. The rock is really cool too, as is the fur on his hind leg. It IS hard to do details with pastel on a small paper! I think you did a great job! What size is this guy?

(yesterday my husband and I were watching a nature show and they showed an arctic fox, so I looked really smart when I said hey that's an arctic fox, before they told what it was, only knew because of your pic. Thanks for making me look smart! :D)

[lene]

Hi Lucky - very glad you could use the drawing in that way :dance2:

the fox itself is approx. 7,5 inches tall.

[Debee]

Nice job, I immediately get a better feeling for him. You nailed that triangle shape too! :clap: :clap: :clap:

[Amazingreys]

I liked the first one, but now I see the changes and what a differenc it makes! I'm so glad everyone posts their work here so we can all learn.
Great job as always Lene!
Interesting comment on the size, I was just wondering last night if one of my (many) problems is that I am working too small....?

You did a great job, thank you for sharing! :clap:

[lene]

thanks DeeBee ;) and Dana :)
Dana, I think working too small will limit the details you can achieve - at least that's what I found. Also working in pastels, I can't get as small details as in colorpencils or graphite pencils :rolleyes: