Animals in Black & White

For this project the goal was to use our observational skills to draw/create an animal using black and white. My observational skills are not as strong as I would like them to be, so I was excited to grow from this project.

I chose to draw a donkey; I just chose an animal figurine I had at home. I realize now that a lot of people chose to draw the head of their animal, so I regret doing the head because it was relatively easy. I first sketched the shapes with a light pencil. I positioned the donkey to the left side to make the composition off-balance. This piece is also relatively small because I knew it would include a lot of detail. I took a while to decide what sort of black and white material I wanted to use for this project. I decided to use what I use most of the time: fine point pen. I always like the look of stippling, so I stippled the donkey being careful to include the shadows and highlights. I then created a dotted line around the figure and made a flat black background to not distract from the dots.

I don't really like this piece; I feel like it's unfinished. I could've pushed the values more and maybe added selective color. I do like how the negative space is broken up and the overall composition of the piece.