What I want to talk about in this next section is taking that rough drawing and refine it.
Let's add some details to the drawing.
This is going to become the framework for the rest of the painting.
I always call it the architectural plans.
You can't build a house without a plan and in my mind you can't create a greate painting without the plans.
Let's start refining.
The first thing we want to do is create a new layer on top of our rough drawing layer.
Then I want to knock the opacity down. We are going to be drawing over the top.
I just want the rough drawing to be a guide.
Now I want to shrink up the size of my brush a little bit.
I am going to start drawing now and start defining some of these details.
I am always using reference. Here is a shot of a pretty beat up,rough and old lion that I saw in Africa.
You can never have enough reference.
We got a little bit further along.
I want to jump to my zebra reference.
I really don't leave anything to chance.
Even though we are making up an animal I love to base everything from reality.
I have been drawing animals all of my life. I am always outside shooting photos.
I am always drawing from life whenever I can.
I am drawing from everywhere I go. Whether it is the Zoo or if I travel.
That is one of the things I love to do. I love to go to new places, meet new people and see new animals.
Africa is one of my favorite places. I have been lucky enough to go a few times and record those trips.
Not just from photographs but also drawing from life.
I want to emphasize as as I straw here.
If you want to be a representational artist, meaning drawing something that we are all familiar with,
one of the best things you can do to strengthen your drawing skills is to draw from life whenever you can.
In my case I go out to the zoo or to national parks. I have binoculars and spotting scopes.
Anything I can do to see animals in the wild or in captivity. I am always drawing whenever I can.
The act of drawing from life expands your visual libary, is what I like to call it.
When you are drawing from life you are really observing every little detail. You are not just merely looking at it.
It is different when someone is walking through the zoo and they are looking at animals and move on.
You are not recording information in the same way. When you are sitting your eye follows every contour.
Every detail gets recorded that way.
Even if you didn't do a good drawing in that moment.
You'll be able to recall those images later on.
Whether you are drawing figure humans, chairs or a zebra out in the Serengeti.
You have that information stored in your brain.
Through repetition like anything else, if you play a lot of basketball, football or tennis,
those neural pathways get used more often.Then they become more solid and the action becomes more natural.
The same goes for drawing.
The act of drawing where you're recording information and the act itself where you are creating the image.
Once again I am not leaving anything to chance. I am looking at the rear end of the zebra.
I am mixing it with what I know about lion anatomy.
I am making sure that all the muscles are coming together in the right way and then adding those stripes.
I want to go back to drawing from life again. I have another example.
This is really cool I am adding the latissimus muscles.
If you look on the sides of the lions you can see the definition going up.
We have them ourselfs, if you do a a lot of pull ups they'll come out of the sides.
For the predators that is there to grab onto the prey and pull them in tight.
For animals like horses or antilopes that is there to help them run relly fast.
What I was going to say earlier about drawing from life is one example I always use.
If you take a five year old child and ask them to draw a tree, they usually draw two curved and one squiggly line.
That is their idea of a tree.
if you take them outside and you set them in a chair and tell them to draw it they'll record it even at five years old.
When you bring them inside and ask them to draw a tree again, all of a sudden they draw it a little bit different.
That is what we do as artists. We record the world around us.
I see it as a job to show the rest of the world the beauty that surrounds us. We can do that by drawing everyday.
Here I am trying to finish up the last couple of deatails.
Notice that I'm keeping the background very simple because our creature is complex enough.
I want him to sit against the simple background.
I want to finish up a little bit of definition in the face.
You'll notice that I am not hitting those stripes because we are going to paint over it.
I just hit a couple more details, get those eyelashes in there that lions have.
I think that's it.
We have got the drawing nice and refined. The roadmap is all set. Lets move on and start with some colour.