Catfacehorse

I went for a walk through the bush at my parent’s place in Tasmania this afternoon, looking for things to draw. I picked up blue-gum nuts, brown gumnuts with a cross on top like little hot cross buns and a tiny white animal skull nestled in the leaf litter.

I sat down to draw the skull, spending lots of time trying to get the intricacies just right. I finished the shading with my pen and sat back to look at it. It sucked. I couldn’t quite put my finger on why it didn’t work, perhaps the relationships between the shapes weren’t quite right. It just looked wrong in a funny sort of way.

This often happens for me the first time I draw something, it seems to take me one go at drawing something new and complex before I can see it properly. I am going to have another try tomorrow, and see if it comes out any better. I don’t find I have this problem if the object is flattened out into 2D already. The picture below is a watercolour I did from a little business card-sized image of beetles, from the back of a Museum admission ticket.

Next here (I hope) will be a decent drawing of a skull. For now, I am enjoying the learning process.