Second commission of the year -'' Mille the Boston Terrier'', original artwork by @mayasky

Hello everyone! :)

How are you this fine January day?

I'm pretty good myself as I've just finished up my second commisson this year.
This is the second out of three chalk and charcola drawings I've been ordered to make of three Boston Terriers.

''Mille'', 30 x 40 cm, chalk and charcoal on Fabriano paper.

As always I took a few photos of the progress and thought I would share them with you.

First off, in the photo above you can see my materials. The charcoal sticks are Nitram sharcoal sharpened with a fine grade sandpaper in the softnesses H, HB and B.
H being the hardest charcoal that gives off the lightest value and B being the softes that gives off the darkest value.
There is also a couple of charcoal pencils that offer an even deeper black than the B- charcoal sticks and my chalk pencil. The chalk pencil is quite dry which means it doesn't have a lot of fat. This means its easier to erase.
My eraser is a standard soft kned gum eraser that can be molded into smaller pieces With a thin tip that offers fine detail erasing.

The first thing I do when starting to draw is just to get in all the big shapes and proportions. After that I go a bit about it like a piece-meal. Meaning I work on smaller areas at the time until I have achieved a pretty good finish.

I am working with my charcoal with a very light hand. This is because if you push the charcoal into the paper it will be very hard to erase it without it living a mark. Once I have applied a light value and am sure of the drawing then I gently build up my value darker and darker. The last thing I do is og over the darkest areas With the cahrcoal pencil. This is because this contains a little fat which gives the darker value, but also which means that its the hardest to erase.

I also like to work my way from the top down when I draw. This is also because of practical reasons. It's easy to by mistake put your arm / hand on the lower piece of the paper which can smudge the drawing.

There it is, DONE! :)

The chalk I apply as I go. To get it really white I have to draw with it quite hard.

I hope you are all having a wondrful day! <3