Digging In

Polar Bear Awakening, Ink on toned paper, © 2018 R.L. Delight Fine Art

Inktober week is done and I drew 33 ink drawings in total! This is number 32. I originally drew it as a thank you to all those who followed my progress on social media. I am sharing it here as this is Polar Bear Week! So, what is next?

I have participated in month-long daily challenges before and have always benefited from them in terms of my art. Usually, I just picked up where I left off and continued on. This challenge was different in many ways. First, I had never used ink as a drawing medium. Second, I have only just started drawing animals (not counting my teen years spent drawing animals from magazine photos).  I struggled with drawing in ink for the entire month, however, even I could see the improvement in the handling of the medium day by day.  While I am generally satisfied with my progress, I also recognize that I have a ways to go.

What I hadn't anticipated when I first set out to take on this challenge, was that I would fall so deeply in love with drawing animals and all that goes with it. Taking on animal art, I had to break with my practice of not using photo reference and only drawing from life or imagination. I haven't used photo reference in my art because I just don't resonate with photos like I do with my subjects in real life.
I have spent many days this summer sketching animals at the Oregon Zoo which is a one and a half  to two hour drive, one way, over the coastal range from my house. With a few exceptions, I have used my own video footage, live webcams, and my sketches as reference for these drawings. A couple times I used my own photo reference.

So, now it is time to go deeper. I had already begun to learn animal anatomy before I took on the Inktober challenge. Now I am going back and learning with purpose and determination. I need to have the ability to sketch and draw animals from life and imagination. That is going to take a bit time and a lot of work. Thank goodness we have so many resources these days with online classes and tutorials. Nothing beats working hard and drawing everyday as I continue to do.

I am looking at printing services until I can afford my own quality printer and scanner. I will be selling prints and cards of the best sketches I did and of future finished drawings. I will also be posting small paintings for sale this week. I need to clean out my studio, so the paintings will be at sale prices from now until December 30th. A percentage of the proceeds from every sale will go to environmental and animal protection organizations. Some will be local and some will be national and international.

Well, this is a long post but I wanted to share some of the growth and changes that have been happening in my studio. Thanks for reading this far!

Go find the beauty in this week!

-Renee