Drawing III: Revenge of the Details

After a major victory on the skull of the saber-toothed cat, Smilodon, details continue to triumph over myself. Their newest win has taken place in a sketchbook of mine. This battle was doomed since the beginning for myself. I began by carefully mapping out the face and features of a fearsome dinosaur- Acrocanthosaurus. A large carnivore rivaling T. rex in size with a large spine on its back.

I should have noticed something was up with the first line. The sketch took me a while to get right. I basically did an under drawing from the known skull of the dinosaur. From there I mapped out tissues like muscle and skin on the jaw. I added lips to this dinosaur as well because there is overwhelming evidence all dinosaurs likely had a pair of smackers. The problems began when I started shading.

Drawing is considered one of the easier arts. Anyone can find a pencil or crayon and make a doodle. I think this is somewhat misleading though. In my experience drawing requires premeditation, attention to detail, and takes a very long time. I have been painting recently so the slow pace of this drawing took really shocked me.

Soon into the drawing I had realized the details were winning this battle. I contemplated different ways to suggest texture and scales but gave up. I looked at images of reptiles like iguanas and komodo dragons and started to sketch individual scales. I couldn't figure out a quick way to suggest the texture of scales and move on with my day. In some areas I figured out clever tricks. Gently shading and pulling the pencil forward in a teardrop shape gave the illusion of scales in lighter areas I didn't want the viewer to focus on.

One of the most difficult parts of this painting was consistently shading each scale to match my light source. Each scale is really a microcosm of the whole dinosaur. While the lighting on large patches of the dinosaur is great and very cohesive I think this drawing doesn't feel unified enough. To me it looks like a bunch of textures in the shape of a dinosaur. One thing I need to learn is tonal grouping. This is when you select parts of you painting to be a certain shade or color and group certain parts of your painting together. For someone who draws in pencil this means making sure certain areas are not drastically darker or lighter than others. This creates a sense of cohesion and unity I feel is missing from my drawing.

I feel I spent too much time on details on this drawing when I should've focused more on the bigger picture. I started mapping scales and shapes when I should've began on shadows. This drawing might have worked better had I began with shading and added the details much later. Although it's hard to add details to a fully shaded drawing. Also sometimes details like scales or hair can alter the quality of a subject. A particular set of scales or hairs might alter how light falls on a subject. For this reason it can be difficult to know what you should prioritize when drawing. Either way even bad art is worth making. I'm grateful I get to have a learning opportunity each time I draw. Hopefully next time I can return order to the universe and stop letting details get the better of me and my art.