Drawing at Leeds Museum 17/02/16

The taxidermy collection at the Leeds Museum was full of different creatures of various shapes, sizes and textures. Choosing an eagle to draw gave me a chance to practice with an avian pose. The way that the bird positions itself on top of the branch and a weighted dynamic to the drawing. Realism is also depicted in the way the bird tilts it's head to the side, looking at something in the distance. Using charcoal as a medium, I worked closely on the feathers in order to try and get a sense of individual feathers as well as grouping of the textures. The eyes were darkened and lightened a couple of times in order to get a better sense of life in the creature. The lighting in the room cast an interesting shadow to the back of the character which adds form to the character.

An issue that I found with this drawing is that the shading on the neck that is meant to separate the feathers of the head from the body has actually created the illusion that the head is slightly further forward than the rest of the body. To rectify this, smudging around the head and neck might have been a good idea to darken and smoothen the body parts.      

This Jaguar was chosen due to the nice skulking look of the animal and the way it's back and head lean slightly. This creature was quite low to the ground and so when drawn, I attempted to put a lot of small elements into a smaller space. The way the jaw curves and smooths coupled with the curve of the left side of it's face add depth to the drawing.

The legs are all different in their shapes and positions but work well as a whole due to the way that they add posture to the animal. The smudging that was later added to the legs help to add weight through the casting of shadows and light but the body does not seem as realistic as the face.

The face seems like it could leap from the page but the body is much flatter. This could be due to the difficulty of the reflective lighting that I had to draw during the lesson. Overall though This has been an enjoyable exercise that has allowed me to draw animalistic forms that are very different in scale and proportion from that of a human figure.