Abandoned

Abandoned resolution. Pen &  ink 190 x 170 mm.©Sue Pownall 2011

First a note to the poor person looking for Eritrean men: there are none here. This weeks stats show another search result for "eritrean men", without cute this time, sending the poor person here. Oh well, I hope you liked the drawings.

The illustration above was done as an entry into Convozine's January illustration challenge. With only 2 days before the deadline I am not giving myself any chance to get a people's award, nor do I expect to win the competition. However, I entered as I need to increase my body of work and to keep publicising my name as an illustrator.  My Convozine January Challenge is here.   It is working too, as they are promoting my drawing on the site.

A while ago Frank of frankswatercolours asked about my Shropshire hen house drawing-

"I'm wondering how you went about this, a few lines all over and gradually build up or do you work on one small area at a time?". 

To answer, after an initial pencil drawing, I outline the whole picture with a pen. I realised that however carefully I do the initial drawing I do not see until I ink. Really, the pencil lines were virtually ignored as I drew the above. Next I build up in like sections eg. here the soles of both shoes, then shadows on the floor etc. As my drawings are between A4 - A3 in size I find it is important to build up the whole picture. With every drawing there is a point where it looks very amateurish, but I know I have to keep building up. Generally, there is a point where it could be called finished, but experience has shown that it still needs the tones strengthening. My new technique is to stick a drawing on the wall and keep coming back to it as I notice new things. Hope that helps you Frank.