WOOF! It’s not so much Hounds of the Baskervilles, but more Dogs of Daftness. I absolutely love drawing animals and you can have a lot of fun with dogs. By their nature dogs can be playful, daft and sometimes rather accident prone. So, great material if you happen to be an artist with a commission to design a dog for a children’s fiction book.

Hairy, scruffy, fluffy pooches…

I’ve created long haired, scruffy ones, and cute and fluffy dogs too. Whatever the client needs for their project. So, I thought it might make a nice change to share with you some sketches, as well as some final artwork of some woofers for Eleanor Curtain Publishing and Armadillo [Publishing]!

I always like to sketch in pencil using a Rotring pencil, because you don’t have to keep stopping to sharpen it. If you’re anything like me, you usually end up with very little pencil anyway. It’s better to use a really soft lead too, as that stops the results looking too hard and technical.

If I can inject humour into a sketch I will. Also cute is very important. I don’t feel anyone really wants to see ugly to the point that it really is, well, ugly!

The second sketch I did many years ago and my style has moved on somewhat, but as you can see, my humour has not. This was a private commission from someone, who wanted a comical portrait of his cat and dog. The scenario captured in the sketch was a regular occurrence, apparently.

A more seriously drawn pooch…

Armadillo publishing wanted me to create a more seriously looking representation of a dog and they wanted to look like a Sheep Dog, rather than your average mongrel. Again, I’d like to share the sketch, rather than the finished artwork. I do feel at times that sketches are undervalued and are generally discouraged when presenting a portfolio and so a post is a good opportunity to share them.