Tag: illustration

“The Lamb” by William Blake, from Songs of Innocence, 1789.

Little Lamb who made thee
        Dost thou know who made thee
Gave thee life & bid thee feed.
By the stream & o’er the mead;
Gave thee clothing of delight,
Softest clothing wooly bright;
Gave thee such a tender voice,
Making all the vales rejoice!
        Little Lamb who made thee
        Dost thou know who made thee

        Little Lamb I’ll tell thee,
        Little Lamb I’ll tell thee!
He is called by thy name,
For he calls himself a Lamb:
He is meek & he is mild,
He became a little child:
I a child & thou a lamb,
We are called by his name.
        Little Lamb God bless thee.
        Little Lamb God bless thee.

The illustration is adapted from a hand-colored copy of Blake’s book in the Lessing J. Rosenwald Collection at the Library of Congress, and is in the public domain. 

Pratique—Day 4.

Progress: tail color blocking and underglaze. Tomorrow I’ll begin several days of fine line work to define feathers, so there won’t be updates until most of that effort is done. I won’t work on the head and eye until last, to keep those features crisp and clean. 

White-winged dove, Prismacolor pencil on toned paper, 6 x 5 inches (15 x 13 cm).  

Pratique: Excavation.

I’ve been a bit housebound lately, and when I can’t hike, I draw. For this skeleton drawing I’m using waxy Prismacolor pencils

to slowly build up layers of color

on vellum-surface Bristol board. The soft pencil allows for subtle imprimatura or underglaze effects. I’ll continue to block in color and refine line, shading, and tone, covering only about a hundred square centimeters a day. I’ve learned to stop once my hand becomes fatigued, or else errors accumulate fast. Finally, I’ll burnish the entire surface to a high sheen. I might selectively distress and dull the finish at the end, but that decision is still days away. It’s slow going.