ARTWRK029 - Titled "ERROL AND NOCKET"

The Story of the Drawing:

I wanted a close-up drawing so I could really show the details and I think I managed to do that with this drawing. It is simple in it's composition, yet it draws you into their faces to check them out closer. I actually find this kind of composition powerful and attractive, at least to my eyes. The title is a play on words and indicates the name of the two places I captured the reference photos. Errol was for the town of Errol in New Hampshire and Nocket is short for Millinocket which is in far north Maine.

Both animals were wet in the reference photos giving a slightly different texture to their hair than in my other drawings. The bull moose we called in during the rut, he was a beautiful bull with an aggressive manner. He didn't take kindly to us calling him in and actually charged us, it was quite a fright at the time. The original bull moose photos have strong foliage in the backdrop and remain one of our most favorite sequence of moose photos we have taken. The cow was feeding in a pond in northern Maine, we observed her in our canoe for an hour or so before she disappeared into the woods. We have since observed her several times since.

I start by drawing a basic outline in pencil, with some more intricate pencil work on critical areas like the eyes and face area and the feet. 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:

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