Wildlife Art – Realistic Graphite Pencil Drawing – The Lake
Realism, wildlife art and composition. All of these more often than not begin with habitat. In my blog where I discussed my thoughts behind my Great Horned Owl drawing, I wrote <Sometimes though a subject’s beauty calls for it to stand alone, with just a suggestion of habitat if at all>. Well, the opposite is also true. Sometimes the landscape or habitat is in fact the star of the show and the animals are the supporting cast. The Lake is such a composition.
When I was growing up we spent many of our summers at the lake. The lake wasn’t very big and our house wasn’t very fancy but these were the happiest days of my childhood. There were great memories of chasing frogs and eating berries in the fields and woods and of having our toes tickled by the minnows in the lake and then there are the memories that are part myth part truth. I vividly remember hearing the story of the “ducks” that landed on the lake and stayed a few days. Now, I don’t think there was a grasshopper that passed by our house that I wasn’t aware of and probably named so how did these ducks sneak in without my seeing them!! I may have been too young to remember, or asleep whenever they came (the Santa principle), or my Dad may have told us the story because he knew we’d love it. Whatever the origin of the story is, a picture formed in my mind that I’ve kept all of my life.
“The Lake” is my homage to that that story. Today I live near a river and Canada geese are part of my life. One day when I was walking by the river I heard a splash behind me and as I turned, camera in hand, I quickly snapped as many pictures as I could as a goose was lifting off. I captured several wing positions and used those pictures of the same goose to compose my drawing. I used strong sunlight filtering through the trees to create a path through the drawing. I’m happy to be able to offer prints of The Lake.
Below is a short time-lapse video of of the work-in progress for this drawing. Hope you enjoy it!
If you have any comments or questions at all, please let me know!
