Step Five of “Horse Portrait 1″ 0
As I move down the face, my blending becomes increasingly refined to give the illusion of finer and finer hairs, down to the bare skin of the muzzle. It becomes more important to focus on the little details such as wrinkles surrounding the lips to give the portrait life. This takes me a good deal of time to become satisfied with the look. Here again I work in very fine layers carving the lines and fading the facets. The hairs inside the nostril are light against the dark shadows and I use the stylus to indicate the hairs, but I am toning down the strength of pressure so as not to leave hairs that would appear too coarse for this part of the anatomy. I am also not imitating the picture as there was quite a bit of nasal hairs that would be somewhat distracting when viewed as a graphite drawing. While I consider myself a realistic artist, I will use a bit of artistic license to make a composition more ideal. I considered shading the background of this picture, but I decided the white of the paper showed off the graphite well and I concluded it would be better served leaving it as it is.