I like your style! It depends what you’re after. I like drawing fur, but I often wish I could loosen up. Your cat is wonderful! I have no doubt you could add detail if and where you wanted it, but it definitely “reads” cat just as it is now!

If you like the style of my drawing, definitely look up ...

I’ve started on the snow and ice. I worked on the area on the left which is the area that contains snow and ice accumulated on top of the stone. The white of the background is serving as the white of the snow, the same way that the white of the paper would if I were drawing with pencil and paper.

I ...

Hi Andrew. I can’t help with all of your questions, although they are very good observations, but if it helps at all, I can share my first reaction. I like that the balcony posts are dark, and that the chair is light. Both tell me immediately that one is metal and the other is wood.

If you can ...

The stone outcrop is completed now, still using the methods described earlier. I can always go back to edit anything that doesn’t look right to me as I add other elements. The stone in the upper left is furthest from the viewer, so I tried to draw more loosely, to suggest depth.
IMG_4109.jpeg ...

I learned using technical pens and India ink. I still think that gives the best results, but you do have to be conscientious about keeping your nibs clean. India ink contains shellac, which makes it very waterproof, but it can easily clog fine nibs.

I find that the Staedtler pigment liner works ...

The stone outcrop is progressing. I’m still only using the same 3 layers I described earlier, and the pencil brush as well as the eraser brush. I’m also still using the same shade of grey.

I can vary the darkness of my strokes by increasing or decreasing the pressure on my stylus, or by changing ...

It does sound like a challenge, but the hair - even the very fine hair of the fox - will create internal shadows. The fox itself will cast a shadow, however soft-edged. And you have the choice of lighting direction, so you can light it to best suit your composition.


Thanks for that advice Mike ...

As I explained earlier, I want to create the landscape first. It seems like I’m giving myself more work by drawing stone what will be hidden by the foxes, but by drawing the foxes on a separate layer above, I can resize them and move them until I’m happy with the way they fit in the scene.

I ...

Arctic fox mate for life, but are usually solitary in winter when food is more scarce. They reunite in late March to April, which is mating season. They lose their white coats in favour of a grey/brown summer coat sometime in April or early May.

I felt I could create a composition including a pair ...

I have been reviewing some of my old photos, and was inspired by some arctic fox photos I had taken years ago in autumn at a wildlife park. I remembered a wildlife documentary I had seen where the arctic fox were filmed on a snowy stone outcrop in Canada. I dug up some winter photos I had taken of ...