This piece was created on plate finish 2 ply Bristol Board with graphite pencils. I used a value scale system of 1 to 10 with “1” as white and “10” as black. I refer to these values as numbers as I talk about the steps of the drawing. The rubber stump I refer to is a ‘Color Shaper’ tool – wedge shape, hard/gray.
My first step was to make a detailed line drawing on tracing paper. I put in as many details as possible.
I transferred the line drawing to my drawing paper using a sheet of transfer paper I’d made myself by hatching over a thin sheet of paper with the side of a soft pencil
It’s very easy to dent paper when tracing a drawing by pressing too hard with your pencil. Dents in the paper can mar a drawing, so I always try to avoid them by using a light touch during this step.
I filled in the darkest areas (10’s and 9’s) with a light hatch using a 4B pencil. If I had completely darkened those areas at this stage of the drawing, a lot of the graphite would have fallen off and they could have smudged badly as I worked on the rest of the drawing. Without any dark values in those areas at all though, it would have been more challenging to adjust the values of the surrounding areas.
To draw his forehead whiskers, I hatched around their outlines with tiny strokes of my pencil point. Some of them needed hard edges and some needed soft edges, but I kept all the whisker outlines a little blurred and fuzzy at this point.
Since the values in his face, chest, front leg, and blanket were going to be very light, I lightened the lines of the original line drawing by tapping them lightly with a kneaded eraser.
I used a small brush that I’d dipped into a little powdered graphite to fill in the 2 and 3 values in his face, chest, front leg, and blanket. I used a soft rubber stump tool to smudge in the slightly darker 4 values. Then I used an eraser to lift out accidental smudges.
Since I now could see my composition better, I decided I would not need the detail I had drawn over the top of his back, so I erased that.
His facial features were the most important part of the drawing, so I made sure they were in the right locations and then carefully drew them. I worked on this part of the drawing upside down to give myself a new perspective and to increase my observation ability.
To keep the blanket very soft looking, I used the rubber stump and pencil with a very soft touch to create the shadows there. I kept the gradations very smooth looking.
‘White’ areas fool the eye and are usually a lot darker than they seem, so I took some time to make sure the light values in those areas were correct. A value scale made out of the paper you’re drawing on is really useful for helping you see values correctly.
At this point, it felt like the drawing started to take on some “weight.” It started to look as if he was actually making a dent in the blanket he was napping on and I could almost hear him purring.
I rearranged the blanket folds under his tail and back to make the composition better. I got rid of a dark fold and minimized the line that went under his tail so it wouldn’t be distracting. Then I added enough detail to make the blankets look like they were cradling him.
The plate finish Bristol board I was working on had a very slick surface and creating soft, blurred edges was challenging. His black mask was a little troublesome too, because the edges had to be precise and very dark. The whiskers were very delicate and I drew them with short strokes made at right angles to their lines to give them a slightly soft effect.
Sometimes the best way to “draw” a tiny detail is to “dot” it in with a hard pencil, and I drew his nostrils with that technique.
Before I started to darken his back to its full dark value, I made sure all the other details were done.
I created the dark values on his back by making several layers of close hatching at right angles to each other with a sharp 4B pencil. (That was my softest graphite lead at the time of this drawing.)
This is the finished piece. I worked from a reference photo I took myself, and I edited out a busy background and rearranged the blanket folds to make a better composition.
I apologize for not having larger scans of the drawing steps. This is an old drawing and they have been lost, but I loved Buddy so much that I wanted to put his drawing online anyway. Also, I’ve had to put my name rather conspicuously across Buddy’s behind because this is such a popular image to steal. :/