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Artsy50 — Smoke
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#animals #coloredpencil #fantasy #horses #traditionaldrawing #unicorn
Published: 2015-01-18 22:47:13 +0000 UTC; Views: 19327; Favourites: 456; Downloads: 0
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Description
My first drawing of 2015... Smoke, a lovely grey unicorn... Sorry I've been absent for awhile. I haven't drawn anything since before Christmas and my muse was on vacation... Then we went to Cuba for a week and now that I'm back, I think my muse has decided to co-operate...
Colored pencils on colored Mi-Teintes paper with a bit of black and white Sharpie paint pen...
Thanks for any faves and kind comments, they are, as always, greatly appreciated!
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Comments: 79
Thank you! Sorry for the late reply. I am rarely on DA anymore. You can see all of my new artwork on my Facebook art page... www.facebook.com/LindaSayeghFo… Hope to see you there. Have a great day! 
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Will do, your art is quite impressive.
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Ahhh This is amazing. <3 Must have taken you so much practise to be able to do this but adhkfh I wish I was as good. <3 Art goals! That at this rate I'll probably never reach but hey, I can still aim for being this good.
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I started drawing so early I don't even remember ever NOT having done it. xD But yeah, you're 57 and I'm 16. Stands to reason there's rather a difference in experience. 
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I made a pretty big jump recently with figuring out how to do fur. I can only do straight fur and it doesn't always work but it's fur. xD
But yeah, definitely keeping it up. I'd dedicate more time than I do to it but I have other interests as well and jobs I need to do around the farm. *headdesk*
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When drawing fur it is always a good idea to have a good, clear reference photo. Keep track of how the fur grows, in which direction is grows and know that not all fur is the same length on every part of the body of an animal. It will be longer usually on the body and shorter on the face, ears and paws for the most part, but not always. Don't make it look too neat, fur is like hair and not every strand is in place. The trick to making it look more realistic is to have a few out of place. This is also true when drawing people portraits. Not everyone's hair is strictly in place, there will always be some fly aways. Have fun with it. It's not work if you love what you're doing.
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For some reason, trying to follow a reference often chucks me off. I'll follow it for direction, but I've been unsuccessful actually trying to copy the texture. (And it could be years until I can handle curls... xD) My way of doing fur basically used jaggedy edges on the shading to give the appearance of fur... No-one given me a full crit but most of the people I've shown my text piece of say it's really good. xD sta.sh/0s054u7ank1 Though, I didn't get the highlight of the blue lighting right there. I've got that top part better in attempts since.
It sure makes shading take longer than it already does though. xD (And as for the quantity of pencils I have to use.) For some reason, I can't make it work using sketching pencils, I can only get it to work correctly with coloured pencils. Probably just cause of how the different things work, I need to practise more.
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It just takes patience and practice. The more you practice, the faster it will become, until you don't really have to think about it too much to accomplish the texture.
Your drawing is a good start. Try making your strokes slightly curved unless you're actually going for a spiky effect. Drawing with colored pencils is best accomplished by doing layers. Start light and work your way to the darker shades. Using a reference photo doesn't mean you need to follow it precisely. It can be changed to suit your purpose. If you have pets, try paying attention to how their fur lies when they are in different positions. Remember, good art is not accomplished quickly. It takes time to get it right. Have patience. My simple animal drawings without a background take about 7 or 8 hours each... That's for an 8.5 x 11 inch drawing... The time flies when I work. So it doesn't seem to take that long.
Using strictly graphite pencils is a bit different. It is helpful to use a black and white reference photo at first until you get the hang of it.
Keep trying, it will come.
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Definitely, practice practice and practice. Also practice. xD Always just more practice. xD
I intended for curved strokes, however it didn't quite work out there. I do definitely do layers for this as much as the paper will let me, but... I do the dark layers first and the light ones afterwards. It just seems to work. xD Over various mediums people tell me to the light first so maybe I should, but I find doing the dark first works quite well too. Especially combined with the fact that I tend to use paper with a fairly flat grain, so I can't layer colours ontop of each-other much, particularly not lighter ontop of darker. I've learnt to work that to my advantage with more things. xD
My "pets" are all horses. xD Though, I'm pretty sure I'm their pet as much as they are mine haha. Either way, I seem to draw too slow to draw from life, I have to use models or photographs because otherwise the critter has moved before I've done very much at all.
I tend to use my fingers to blend, I couldn't figure out how to clean off stomps and I don't want to go through gazillions of cottonbuds. xD I used to be better with graphite than with coloured pencils, but I've gotten more used to coloured ones now. xD But I do agree that they are different to work. I tend to use them more for quicker sketches now than full drawings. They're good for quicker practice sketches. ^_^
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Fantastic usage with the color pencils here, absolutely beautiful! I should use color pencils on colored paper if cool effects like this happen. The unicorn looks very noble in this drawing, and knows it.
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Thank you very much!
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You're welcome! And that makes sense, thanks! ^^
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Stunning! I love how the blue contrasts with the grey
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Really love this a lot! Love all your work, but this is one of my favs of yours! <3
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Oh wow, what a beautiful drawing 
You are an really great artist, I have seen your other drawings and they are absolutly amazing
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Awww, that's so very sweet of you! Thank You!
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You're very welcome, Linda
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