ARTWRK028 - Titled "THE ROMNEY BEAR"

The Story of the Drawing:

This pen and ink drawing was referenced from a photograph taken by a good friend of mine Duane Cross. He is also a very talented wildlife photographer and I envy his ability as a hunter to get closer to animals in the wild. I would like to thank him publically for allowing me to use his photo as a reference. I drew it using a combination of the following tools, Pigma Micron Pens, Rapidograph Pens, drawing ink, inking with paint brush technique.

This drawing was difficult for me, black bears are very dark in nature and sometimes the detail is blended. Also they are all hair, so I was concerned the picture would look bland with so much hair.

I messed up my first attempt, the eyes just didn't look right and I wasn't happy with the flow of the hair, so I tore it up and started again. Now that it complete I feel I did a fairly realistic representation of a black bear and am actually considering doing another pen and ink including two cubs. By the way, there are lots, lots, lots of pen strokes in a bear drawing.

The title is a play on words which my friend who took the original photo will understand.

Once complete I scan the image, then process it to remove the paper texture that shows after being scanned, no other processing is done other than to make it look just like the original.

I started by drawing a basic outline in pencil, with some more intricate pencil work on critical areas like the eyes and face area. Once I am happy with the basic lines I immediately start to draw with ink. I usually don't go back and pencil more, I just work straight form my inking pens. This can be a real challenge as there is no un-doing anything once the ink hits the paper. I used a combination of tools to draw with, but the main items are: Rotring Pens, Pigma Pens and some painted ink useing brushes. The original drawing is approximately 16x20 inches in size and drawn on heavy 300gsm watercolor paper.

Once the drawing is complete, we scan it at 800 dpi and process the scan to reflect the original as much as possible. We make a limited edition number of prints to sell. The small image size here really doesn't do the original justice, but its a fair representation.

Robert J Andersen

DETAIL IMAGE 1:

DETAIL IMAGE 2:

FINAL FULL DRAWING:

This page has been viewed 21 times since January 1st, 2014.