16″ x 20″, Graphite Pencil on Paper
Overall, these drawings were something that had to be a little more creative than I usually do. And by that I mean, I’m usually someone who gets inspiration from other artists’ work or images, or I’ll watch something and decide to take a specific scene or moment and draw in my own way. But for this project, I came up with my own ideas from my imagination, trust me, it wasn’t easy. After a while though, it was starting to come along nicely, and by the end, it turned out better than I expected. In the drawing, you see a group of dogs sitting with a big tree in the background. I used the perspective of the tree’s height to focus on the size of the dogs. The dogs are meant to be the primary subjects in the center of the paper. The main media I used for this artwork were pencil and paper. I used a ruler and several shading techniques to draw straight lines. To start out, I drew lightly and made some simple but very basic shapes. Once I knew what shapes I wanted, I turned them into dogs. Once I had very light images of dogs, I went with darker lines and started to add shade and more texture. You may be wondering why I decided to use dogs and why are they sitting underneath a tree at Christmas time? Well, the first reason would be that I love dogs, and they’re always the kind of pet that will love you and keep you company in hard times. In this drawing, I wanted to illustrate a couple of dogs sitting in a warm, cozy house on Christmas morning, experiencing the magic with their family. It is an image of heartwarming gladness and funny moments with your very special pets. When I was young, I was told that we had a dog named Noah, and even though I don’t remember it specifically myself, my mom would often tell me about how he would always know that it was Christmas time. He even got his own stocking, and he always tore up his own presents, and I guess it was pretty funny. I just wanted to remind myself that even though Christmas time is a great time of year for family and friends, it’s just as magical with your pets, and you should cherish the moments with the theme.