Cosmic Controls - Gallery Benefit Piece #2

Here's my second piece for Kettle Art's For The Love of Kettle benefit show on Sat, Feb 11th.  Follow the link for details.  Again, everything in the show is a steal for $50 and goes 100% to keeping the non-profit gallery afloat.  

I've been wanting to do a piece like this for quite awhile and hope to do some more on my usual scratchboards, possibly integrating color.  This one is nib pen on 9x12 primed masonite board.  This and the 'Empty Nest' piece were a good excuse to get used to working with a dip pen instead of technical fine tip pens.  Naturally I'm most comfortable on scratchboard and still feel they're the most flexible medium for me, but I enjoying playing with new materials!

Empty Nest - gallery benefit piece

Just finished up this piece for a benefit show at Kettle Art ("For The Love of Kettle") on February 11th.  I'm told every year there's a line down the block of people waiting to get their hands on the work, all of which sells for $50.  This is a major steal, by the way, and there's a huge group of talented Dallas artists showing work.

This piece was a challenge for me in the sense that I was working on a primed piece of wood instead of my super smooth claybords, which required that I use different tools to contend with the rougher and more absorbent surface.  I went through a large handful of pens, sharpies, markers, brushes, and finally settled into a comfortable use of a dip nib pen.  So far all of these new gallery opportunities are forcing me to really stretch out of my comfort zone, material wise, while retaining a sense of my usual aesthetic.  All good things!

Kablam! - mixed media Soda Gallery piece

This is a piece I just finished for the upcoming Fab 50 Show at The Soda Gallery in Dallas on March 1st (50 artists, 50 pieces, $50 each).

This was my first attempt at adding color to a scratchboard, and found that it's remarkably easy to to add watercolor washes to the Ampersand Claybords.  The silver was also an experiment, where I masked out the black drawing with a carefully cut chunk of blue painter's tape.  Spray painting the black was a total disaster, actually, because the paint wouldn't adhere over the silver layer.  I ended up having to manually draw the lines and hand paint the fills.  The painter's tape did a nice job of texturizing the silver when I pulled it off, which was a happy accident.  


Despite my reluctance to integrate color into my drawings, generally, this was successful enough that I suspect I'll be doing more of it down the line.

Plesiosaur - Dinosaur Illustration

Here's a plesiosaur working on a snack!  I recently drew this illustration for a dear friend, being her favorite of our dinosaur ancestors.  It was fun to transcribe my prehistoric obsession underwater for a change!  Good opportunities here for gritty grey tones and squiggly shapes.  This is something I'd like to explore further down the line to really push the textures and lighting some more. 

'Lava' Volcano Illustration

Following my asteroid and prehistoric valley illustrations, I wanted to do one focusing on the erupting volcano.  This one is a 5x7, pen & ink on ampersand claybord (uninked white scratchboard).

This was a fun start to my day over coffee and heavy metal, and I thought I'd share an animated gif of the rough sketch, tighter sketch, and final inked version.

Rear Window Hitchcock Illustration

Here's another pen on scratchboard 12x16 piece, illustrating Hitchcock's classic Rear Window.  Between Rear Window and Vertigo, it seems Hitchcock took sick pleasure in throwing James Stewart out of windows, and offered prime caricature material. 

While I had planned on keeping Stewart as the focal point, after doing dozens of thumbnail drawings it just wasn't quite working.  I had one that cut Stewart out of the drawing almost completely, focusing instead on Hitchcock's enjoyment of dumping him out of the wheelchair.  Much more interesting!

Finally, here is a version done up as a mock MAD Magazine cover for the Hartford Art School MFA in Illustration program.  I haven't yet published a magazine cover, but wouldn't MAD be an incredible place to start?!  (wink, wink)

Pet & Baby Portrait Drawing

I thought I'd share my most recent commissioned pen & ink portrait.  Thanks Beth!

This was my first time rendering an infant, and I wanted to retain my familiar hatched shading technique without her appearing wrinkly, aged, or otherwise distorted (as the hatching sometimes can do).  All in all, I think she looks consistent with the rest of the image and I'm happy with how everything turned out.

I really love doing pen & ink pieces like these for clients. While I primary work less realistically and from the imagination, it's so enjoyable to work from a photo and explore basic shading techniques. I find the process meditative, and affords me the freedom to study value and play with texture. And ultimately it's just awesome hearing how happy people are to share it with their families.

Pterodactdinner... yet another dinosaur drawing

Yet another dinosaur drawing... 8x10, pen on scratchboard.

A delectable dino dinner for drawing dorks like me, with color and 3d versions to follow. In fact, I have a feeling I will soon be starting an spin-off blog featuring my 3d drawings, which can for now be seen at AlbrightIllustration.com and facebook.com/albrightillustration.

Thanks, as always, for looking!

Drawing Process - 'Sabre Skull Valley'

 

Greetings! Today I'll to explain the process of developing my latest illustration--a prehistoric landscape on 12"x16" Claybord (Ampersand brand uninked scratchboard).  You can click any of these images to see them enlarged.

Most of this will look pretty rough and scrappy, and I guess that's kind of the point.  It takes a series of steps for me to reach the final state of what appears to be a controlled drawing.  Despite the mass of detail in the final image, I honestly don't have it all just sitting in my head ready to go.  It comes out of a lengthy process of continually refining the composition and values through a series of thumbnail drawings, rough full-size sketches, refined tracings of those sketches, and ultimately the clayboard itself.  

It sounds like a masochistic process when you think about how many times the image gets redrawn, but I've found it's actually the most reliable way for me to come to a final image that makes me happy.  So in that sense, I quite enjoy it!

I begin with a vague concept that I'd like to explore, in this case a dense prehistoric jungle with the key elements of a dragonfly and sabretooth tiger skull in the foreground with a volcano in the background.  These tiny sketches aren't meant to lock down any real detail, but simply explore different combinations of the elements in a composition that leads the eye around the page in an interesting way.

Once I have a thumbnail that I'm reasonably comfortable with, I'll cut a sheet of scrap paper to the size of my final board and do some rough sketching to explore my options.  Here I've used a light blue pencil to start, followed by a regular pencil to lock in some of the elements.  As you can see on the left image below, there's a lot of sloppy sketching going on where I'm trying different things and making intuitive compositional decisions.  

After the first rough starts to come together, I'll cut a second sheet of newsprint paper and lay it over the first on a lightbox, tracing and refining the shapes yet again.  At this point I'll still have areas that I'm not totally happy with, in which case I'll do my best to erase or just redraw over them.  You can see with the dragonfly that I'll sometimes use tracing paper to clean it up some or try variations without wearing through the paper.

I'll then do yet another tracing of the image on the lightbox to double check everything and form a template of the outlines.  This version get's laid down over the final board, sandwiching graphite transfer paper.  Using a ballpoint pen, I trace over the outlines, which leaves a light carbon copy on the clayboard that I can then finalize with micron technical pens (I prefer the 03 (.35mm) width).  

Here's an animation of the final board as it's outlined and then shaded.

I'm always singing the praises of Ampersand's Claybords, and yet again I have to say how much I enjoy working on them as opposed to paper.  Having the freedom to scratch away at the ink for texture or for corrections has truly liberated my process.  The flexibility to draw the values from light to dark, and then scratch them back again from dark to light has allowed me to literally sculpt my drawings until everything feels balanced.  It's removed the fear of going to dark and ruining hours of work, and made the whole process a lot more fun.

I've been working so much in black and white lately that my next experiment is to do a colored version of this to include in my portfolio.  Stay tuned for that, as well as a series of 3D illustration for your retro red/blue glasses!

Alice in Wonderland illustration

I just finished up my Alice in Wonderland illustration, which I am contributing to a collaborative wordless adaptation through Facebook.  

Here's a link to the album "What's The Use Of A Book Without Pictures?" by Neoflux Productions http://www.tinyurl.com/BookWithoutPictures

Any artist or photographer can join in and email to claim a paragraph, which is then posted in the facebook album, later to be collected in a PDF and perhaps printed and bound for nonprofit publication, in which case all sales will go towards printing for library submissions.  It seemed like a great opportunity to practice my compositions and ink work, and get involved in a large group effort.  And who doesn't love Alice in Wonderland?

My passage sees the loquacious Duchess blathering on while Alice politely suggests she limit her words.  The piece itself is 8x10, pen & ink on scratchboard.  For those of you interested in the typical process blogging, here are shots of some thumbnails and my rough pencils.

At first I wasn't sure which direction to follow.  I wanted to shy away from replicating the familiar character designs, but I was also a bit intimidated by the prospect of a complete redesign.  I ended up getting excited about representing the Duchess and something of a grotesque, saggy old loudmouth with an oblivious enthusiasm and unintentional domination over Alice.  I turned Alice herself away from the camera in order to place the viewer in her shoes, facing up at the overbearing Duchess.

 

And lastly, here's an example of why I love claybord so much.  After consulting with some of my illustrator friends and graduate classmates, I realized that Alice's hand at the center of the composition just called too much attention to itself and appeared to be grabbing at the Duchess's chest.  Not critical to the overall image, I decided to scratch it out and re-ink the area.  A quick and painless adjustment when using claybord.  Kind of remind you of those 'find the difference' bar games, doesn't it?

original with 'boob grab'

adjusted drawing, sans hand

Happy Mother's Day! - Orchid Scratchboard

Happy Mother's Day everyone!

I must admit, flowers are such a beautiful, naturally perfected form that it's arguably a ridiculous venture to attempt manually recreating them.  But alas, it's a fun exercise to both replicate and abstract the forms.  My version seems to resemble pelvic bones... A curious coincidence considering my own mother's recent stress fracture which kept her on crutches for 8 weeks... and healed just in time for mothers day!

Gritty Kitty - scratchboard portrait

Here's a new commissioned pet portrait of kitty 'Columbine', thanks again to Pete ( @GunGeekATX ) who's awesome dog Clyde has graced us with his likeness previously on the blog.  Full-disclosure, I've never met either of these animals in person, but I feel like they'd be my pals if I ever do.  In fact, I've been meaning to post the colored version of Clyde's portrait, so here you go!

I'm having fun becoming more comfortable with scratchboard, and noticing the different aesthetic that it offers in comparison to black ink on white clayboard.  My scraper tool is a much finer instrument than my pens of choice, so the level of detail coming out on scratchboard is a different beast entirely.  Less cartoony, I'd say, for better or worse.  The challenge, I find, is in reaching a satisfying level of white value in the drawings.  This one is more successful than the previous cats in that regard, although I am fond of the shadowy gothic feel of a darker scratchboard.  One of these days I promise I'll do a colored scratch piece, wouldn't that be fun?


EDIT: No time like the present right?!

Gritty Kitty ain't so pretty, but it's really thick
It fits my catbox, oh so snug, it always does the trick
I love to pour it on my toes, and squish, and squish, and squish
It ne'er offends my tender nose like a smelly fish
It's texture is a joy to me, it's just as smooth as silk
It makes my little whiskers twitch
It stays crunchy even in milk
I may not be the President, I may not be the Pope
But as long as I have Gritty Kitty, I shall never mope.


... Ren & Stimpy anyone?

Cats con Crows - scratchboard pet portrait

Today's drawing is a scratchboard portrait of my dear friends Kyle and Christie's cats Spyder and Maverick.  As we're all fans of crows, it seemed fitting to replace the couch from the original photo with something more ominous.  Now I find myself wondering, who's the predator and who's the prey?!

Since we last spoke I've created a new facebook page, so stop by and say hello!  It's a little easier for me to make minor posts there with images and links, so if you happen to be stopping by the blog and wondering where the action is... well, now you know!  The new page is also linked to my twitter, so that gives you a couple added ways to keep up.  

Something new I'm doing via facebook/twitter (but not here on the blog) is to provide links to exciting things that I'm finding... other creative themed blog posts, tutorials, and anything else I suspect would benefit or interest you guys.  Despite all the distractions that the iPad brings, it does offer some fantastic methods of directing you towards relevant articles while cutting out the fat.  I highly recommend the ZITE app, for customizable content that updates constantly.  Most of my links are coming from there.

Stephen King portrait pt2: Scratchboard

Somewhere along the preparation lines I decided my Stephen King piece might make a nice scratchboard, and thus afford me a good opportunity for self-challenge.  I'm always more comfortable laying black ink on a white surface, but given the light source in the image, it seemed appropriate to 'draw in' the light by scratching white into the black scratchboard surface.

After reworking my photoshop roughs with the blacks filled in, I had a pretty good sense of where I wanted to take it tonally.  It was both a blessing and a curse to have so completely refined the image in the rough stage, because I found myself both challenged to continually improve the final scratchboard, as well as frustrated to have set up certain expectations that were hard to let go of in the rendering stage.

In some ways I find the digital mockup more satisfying, whether due to the spontaneous handling, the smoother edges of the photoshop brushes, or the way I ended up handling the lighting on the body itself.  I'm almost tempted to do a second final drawing, this time drawing in black on claybord.

digital mockup

Dog Portrait... yep, another!

 


Today's entry is a custom portrait of my boss's dog Hank!  I would tell you what kind of dog he is, but I don't actually know.  I've only ever seen photos of him, though I imagine he's quite the genial dogfellow... and if you're really on the ball, you might find his name hidden in the details!  Here's the original...

I've really been enjoying these mini portraits lately.  They give me a chance to let go of any conceptual concerns and just practice my techniques... mostly shading styles.  While not necessarily my best drawing, this was another great opportunity to experiment with line work.  The photo I was working from was a bit low-res or had a soft focus, so I had to tinker and invent some of the values and textures rather than copying them directly.


My favorite details are the highlights on his skin folds and background shading.  
I've been wanting to play with a background like this for awhile... not the bones specifically (although I do like them quite a bit!) but the parallel lines that break and fade at the edges.  

I see a lot of this shading style from some my favorite illustrators (R. Crumb, Patrick Arrasmith, and Mario Zucca to name a few).  Their clean, refined use of line is something I find quite elegant and really aspire to.


I may someday find I'm able to get this effect by simply lifting my pen to break the lines (as these guys most likely are), but for now I'm enjoying the flexibility of claybord for laying down lines and then breaking them with my scraper tools.  Claybord also allows me to reintroduce highlights, which I'm not likely to give up anytime soon.  


My automatic tendency is towards a more haphazard crosshatching style than my idols, but I'm going to continue working towards that nice, controlled use of parallel lines.  I may even try drawing something soon that sticks exclusively to parallel shading in lieu of the perpendicular crosshatching!

Dog Portrait - Scratchboard Tutorial pt 4

Welcome back to the 4th and final entry in the BigDumbAnimal Scratchboard Tutorial!  So far we've discussed what makes scratchboard art unique, as well as the recommended materials and tools, the process of transferring a source image to the board itself, and the techniques for mark-making and shading.  If you've been following along and have a scratchboard of your own in the works, you may be ready for some tips for revisions and corrections.  And if you're quite happy with your drawing and just want to show it off, we'll address that too!  Thus, our final entry will cover adjustments, revisions, finishing, and presentation!


ADJUSTMENTS & CORRECTIONS


The wonderful thing about scratchboard art is that, assuming you haven't dug all the way through the layer of white clay, you can make multiple rounds of revisions.  Made an area overly bright with too many scratches?  Simple pull out a black permanent pen and fill those unwanted white areas.  On claybord and scratchboard I prefer technical pens such as Microns or Alvin Techliners, generally with a .3 to .5 millimeter point, which are smooth and don't skip along the smooth surface.  You could also use black india ink with a fine brush.  If you don't have access to either of those, you could do a lot worse than Uniball Vision Elite pens from your local office supply store.  These have a great flow, super-black marks, and are waterproof and fade-resistant.  In fact, Uniballs are my prefered brand when working on paper, they just don't write as smoothly as I'd like on the scratchboard surface.  In any case, once you've made your revisions, don't worry if the areas that you've re-inked have a sheen or appear to be a different shade of black from the board itself... you can use a finishing spray to unify those tones and protect the board, but more on that in a bit.

Remember in my last post when I introduced the technique of Broken Hatching?  Similar to using crosshatching to make your highlights brighter, you can use a black pen to make perpendicular marks through your scratches.  This will help by breaking up your white lines to introduce some texture and tone down the highlights that may have gotten a little too bright.  In my case (looking at the photo above), I decided that while the board was close to completion, it was overall a bit brighter than I intended.  I also felt the dogs could pop a bit more if I introduced some shadow behind them.  So I took out my black pen and cross-hatched the background to soften up the lines, alternating between pen and scraper tool to find a happy medium.

Detail shot with lots of black correction lines

Above you'll see a detail scan of Gizmo's ear.  Here you can see where I re-introduced black lines to tweak the shading and add shadow.  Note the strong outline along the right side and the black hatching lines just above the bottom edge highlight.  Funny isn't it, how much a mess it is up close?  But from a distance, you'd never know!


At this point in the drawing, I recommend standing a good 5 feet away to help identify any areas that may need some final touch-ups.  Again, it's easy to get overly hung-up on the finer details when your face is a foot away, but most people are going to see your drawing from a distance--and you should too!


If you still have any of those graphite transfer paper marks showing on your board, now is a great time to grab an eraser and gently remove them.  For this, I recommend Magic Rub vinyl erasers or a Sanford Design kneaded eraser.  Both will be available by the box-load at your art or craft store.


One last word on corrections: 
If you have, in fact, dug so deep that you've reached the end of the clay layer and still need it whiter, don't worry!  You can paint it back in with some White Opaque ink from the local art supply store.  While not as flexible as alternating between scraper and black pen, you should be able to carefully brush those trouble areas back to good health.


Finally, here's my finished portrait of Gizmo and Snoopy!

FINISHING & PRESENTATION


Now that you're happy with your scratchboard and psyched to show it off, you can have fun deciding how to present it!  Scratchboards look great in black frames, especially those without glass.  If you do decide to present it this way, it's a good idea to use some spray finisher to protect the surface and help even out the tones.  Ampersand recommends Krylon Matte Finish #1311 on their website, and that's precisely what I use on my boards. It's available at any art store and does a nice job of deepening the blacks while removing the shine or scuffs that may have accumulated from my hands or eraser.  It also protects the board from dust, moisture, etc.  If you prefer a glossy finish, you can buy the glossy formula instead.  Just give it a coat or two, let it dry, and plop it in that frame!

CONCLUSION

And that brings us to the end!  If you've read this far, thanks for following along and I hope you've been encouraged to try scratchboard for yourself!  It's a very unique process, and an even more unique aesthetic.  It does take some practice, but I promise you'll be happy you tried!  And of course, if once you get started you need any help, I'm always available to lend a helping hand, eye, or ear.  

Stay tuned for less typing and more drawing.  Have a great week everyone!

Dog Portrait - Scratchboard Tutorial pt 3

SHADING TECHNIQUES

click to enlarge for detail

Before we start scratching into your board, let's take a moment to look at some basic shading techniques.  These are important not just to scratchboard art, but to drawing in general!  I sketched up some examples for you to check out above.  I drew these in black to get the ideas down quickly, but the approach is exactly the same whether you're using pencil, pen, scratch tool, marker, crayon, etc.


Hatching

• Hatching is your most basic shading method.  Similar to scribbling, but with a tad bit more control.  It's basically the use of parallel lines to imply value.  The closer together your lines are, the darker your shading will be.

Cross-Hatching

• Cross-hatching introduces perpendicular lines to your first set of hatched lines, taking the values even darker.  You can also angle your lines beyond the standard 90 degrees for different effect.

Stippling

• Stippling is the use of small dots to build up value.  I tend to use stippling for shading skin tone because it's less distracting than lines and can be built up more gradually.  It's a time consuming process, but has a beauty that's hard to match.  Check out my 'Potty Training Portrait' post for a great example of this technique.

Broken Hatching

• Broken hatching is my favorite, and can look really elegant.  This is where you start with basic hatching technique, but then go back in to break the lines up with perpendicular marks of the opposite color (via pen on scratchboard, or via scraper tool on claybord).  This is useful when you want your hatched shading a bit softened or faded out at the edges.  The background in my 'Potty Training Portrait' makes a lot of use of broken hatching.

Combinations

• Don't be afraid to experiment with combinations of these techniques.  Each is good for different things, and bringing them together can have a great effect!  Have fun with them, and practice all the time!  (I draw little boxes and play with shading techniques while on the phone, etc.)

Now let's get back to our scratchboards!

SCRATCHING THAT BOARD (vrecka, vrecka!)

Now that you've got your image transferred and you're happy with your shapes of value, go ahead and grab your scraper tool of choice and go at it!  If you're hesitant to proceed, the best place to start would be the center of a highlight where you have some wiggle room to test your technique.  Remember the shading methods that I outlined above, but don't be afraid to experiment!  Try slow deliberate scratches.  Try fast and sloppy scratches!  Try parallel lines for grey tones, or add perpendicular lines to go even brighter (hatching & cross-hatching)!  You can even make quick little pecks at the surface to make small dots of value (stippling).  

A word of advice--work the whole surface evenly and don't spend too much time in one place.  Make sure you're moving around and addressing the whole image, gradually bringing those highlights out together.  That way you won't find that you've overworked your image or dug too deep into the surface. 

I broke my own rules, getting a little gung ho on the dogs while ignoring the background... oh well :) 

Keep on alternating your area of focus, always referencing your original image to make sure you're getting the values right.  Try looking at it upside down (remember, this tricks us into really SEEing the values as they are, not as our brains THINK they are).  And make sure you stand up every few minutes to look at it from a distance.  It's easy to get tunnel vision and get overly hung up on the fine detail without seeing the image as a whole.

NEXT UP:  

On the next and final entry of the BigDumbAnimal Scratchboard Tutorial, we'll look at some more techniques for refining the image and how to fix those boo boos that inevitably will happen.  But don't worry, it's only art!

... Continue to Part 4

Dog Portrait - Scratchboard Tutorial pt 2

Welcome back to the BigDumbAnimal scratchboard tutorial!  While I don't profess to be an expert per se, nor do I mean to suggest there aren't more exhaustive scratchboard tutorials out there, I am an enthusiast with a desire to teach!  And so long as I'm posting my own personal work on this blog, I figure I might as well leave some interesting or useful information about my process for those who choose to read beyond the pretty pictures.  Now, let us get back to the good stuff!


TRANSFERRING THE IMAGE


Now that you have all of your materials, we're ready to start transferring the image to your board!  (if you don't have your scraper tool handy just yet, no worries.  You won't need that until later) 


Make sure your image and transfer paper are both cut down to the size of your actual board.  Be careful handling the transfer paper, as it has a tendency to leave a fine residue everywhere!  But don't worry--like I said before, it will wash out of most everything.  And if you want, you can take a tissue and wipe off any excess graphite from the paper.  A little bit goes a long way.


Now you're going to make a sandwich with your board, transfer paper, and source image.
First off lay your source image, face up, directly on top of the scratchboard.  These will be your two pieces of bread.  Now using a strip of masking tape folded over the top of the board, hold the image in position.  Now, place your transfer paper face down between the board and your image, using a strip of masking tape along to bottom to hold it all in position.  The tape should now be touching both the face of your image and the backside of your scratchboard, not necessarily the transfer paper and ideally not the black surface of your scratchboard.  The reason I suggest getting your image in place before the transfer paper is to avoid shifting which may leave some of the graphite residue in areas you didn't mean for it to.

Before you start transferring your image, keep in mind that when working on scratchboard you want to draw the highlights, not the shadows or outlines.  For that reason, I'm hesitant to use the phrase 'trace your image'.  If you need to leave a dark line to define a shape, you'll want to focus on the areas surrounding that outline.  The best tactic here is to try seeing your image as a series of shapes of value, tracing around the highlights rather than defining outlines.  In my case, I followed the shapes of bright white and patterns within the dogs' fur.  My favorite trick, both while transferring and shading, is to turn my drawings upside down.  This helps to trick the mind into looking at the actual values instead of relying on our preconceptions of what we're drawing.  You'll find you're much more likely to focus on highlights and shadows than outlines.  Now get out any old pen or pencil and get started on that transfer!  A gentle touch will work... again, a little bit of graphite goes a long way!

Once you feel you've identified the major shapes of value, go ahead and peel the tape back from the bottom.  Gently lifting up the transfer paper and source image, you'll see your marks transfered to the board.  Check to make sure you didn't miss anything important.  If you did, go ahead and lay them back down and rework those missed areas.  Otherwise if you're comfortable moving forward, go ahead and toss your transfer paper.  I tend to keep my source image attached so that I can easily flip it up and down for comparison, but you can also keep it to the side of your board for reference.  In fact, I tend to print a couple extra copies of my source image to have around just in case.


NEXT UP:  
Scratching that Board (vrecka, vrecka!).... Continue to Part 3

Dog Portrait - Scratchboard Tutorial pt 1

Potty Training Portrait

A coworker friend commissioned this 10x8 portrait of her twin 2 year-olds.  Having drawn the boys once before (and always a fan of toilet humor), I was excited at the opportunity!  

We agreed that instead of the same old paper, claybord might offer us something special to work with, and I took it as another great opportunity to explore shading techniques.  If you click to enlarge the full image or detail shot below, you'll see that the boys themselves are primarily stippled (shaded using small dots, individually 'tapped' on the surface), whereas the background is hatched (shaded with lines).  In the case of their hair and the rug, I shaded with curves and squiggles.  All in all the process took about 9 hours.

detail click to enlarge

My favorite detail of all is where, at the last minute, I took my scraper-tool and re-introduced those highlights on the left edges of the boys' skin.  Every project seems to find me trying something new with the materials, and I'm wondering how I ever survived without the ability to push and pull values like I can here, alternating between pen and scraper-tool on the claybord.  Can you tell I love Ampersand products?  I should be sponsored, wink wink!