This week, in addition to my focused practice of 3-value studies, I’m doing daily animal face sketches to work proportions. First up is a weimaraner dog:

My original intent was to make this a quick and casual sketch using the dot-to-line contour approach, but it ended up a way longer study. The eye on the left gave me a ton of trouble. The problem was in trying to go quickly because I stopped really looking at the shapes and assumed I knew what it looked like. Big mistake!

I kept working at it until it improved and finally had to call it good enough. I like the shading that frames the dog’s head, but not the shading on the face so much. Oh well… onward and upward!