| Wolf Portrait by Cindy Servis |
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I begin by drawing in with pencil the main features of the face and burning the basic and darkest structures of the fur with a standard pointed wedge burner. The wood is basswood. |
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In
this view, I have started blocking in the shading in the fur with the
darkest parts first. I work from dark to light always working on the
darkest parts as they will help define the lighter areas. I use a
teardrop shaped shading tool and use only the heel of one side or the
other. This takes some practice so I suggest you try it on something you
don't mind ruining for the first few times.
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Here, the darkest
areas are pretty well defined. I have started now to add in the lighter
values leaving the white areas without any color at all. I use the same
technique as I used to shade in the dark areas above but I move the
burning tool much faster.
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More of the shading
is done here. For the hair texture in the darkest areas of the fur I use
a quick zig zag stroke that moves with the hair. This picture unlike the
others was taken in the sun and is fairly true to the color of the wood
and the burning.
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I finish the shading,
blending the colors into one another to make them not so sharply defined
as the picture above is. Once the shading is all put in, I go back to the
pointed wedge and pull out individual hairs and put in the background
trees to add some interest in shape and environment. I used the pointed
wedge for the pine trees.
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At left are two close ups
of the face. The nose looks very dark in the picture above and at left.
It has a bit of a highlight as a nose would but...it didn't show in the
picture. When the weather warms some, I will take another picture of
this...and one of the piece with varnish on it as well.
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