"Elegy" (owl drawing)

[StephKunze]

I said I wouldn't do any graphite drawings in 2025, but I'm learning there's no way I'm going to be able to stick to that rule. Mixed media always requires 2+ hours of work time because I have to take out so many supplies for it. I found I needed to find a way to fill the 30 minute,1 hour, and 1.5 hour chunks of art time that I'll get in the week, so I'm filling those up with graphite drawing. Nothing is as simple as pulling out a small graphite drawing and working on it for a short period of focused time.

This is a rework of an old graphite drawing I completed in 2022. It's called "Elegy." I redid the owl and made some changes to the mouse and background.

"Elegy" (graphite, 9.5 x 6.5 inches)

I'm also working on a mixed media piece of capybaras that I'm hoping I'll have done within the next couple weeks!

 

[Terri]

Love it! Your graphite drawings are beautiful. I like the softness in this one; maybe due to the re-work you mentioned? It's very appealing.

Looking forward to seeing your capybaras!

 

[Donna T]

Oh that's beautiful; kind of mystical with a "cycle of life" feeling. That background is so dark and you must be very good at not letting things get smudged!

 

[StephKunze]

Love it! Your graphite drawings are beautiful. I like the softness in this one; maybe due to the re-work you mentioned? It's very appealing.

Looking forward to seeing your capybaras!

Thanks, I appreciate it And hm, maybe it's a bit softer looking because it's been recently reworked, though generally most my graphite drawings end up looking soft like this. This one I didn't add any hard lines around the subjects so maybe that's making them look like they're receding a bit more

 

[StephKunze]

Oh that's beautiful; kind of mystical with a "cycle of life" feeling. That background is so dark and you must be very good at not letting things get smudged!

Thank you so much! A lot of that is from using a particular drawing paper called Arches watercolor hot press. It can handle many, many layers of graphite, and it holds the graphite in well. I'll also often put a loose sheet of printer paper under my hand/arm to protect the graphite while I'm drawing

 

[Jo Castillo]

Very well done and tells a good story.

 

[StephKunze]

Very well done and tells a good story.

Thanks

 

[Terri]

A lot of that is from using a particular drawing paper called Arches watercolor hot press.

One of my favorite papers. The surface is smooth as glass and almost as hard. I don't work in graphite or watercolor, but for image transfers this paper is terrific!

When I work with oil pastels I love Arches oil paper. Great weight and quality. Arches is hard to beat.

 

[StephKunze]

One of my favorite papers. The surface is smooth as glass and almost as hard. I don't work in graphite or watercolor, but for image transfers this paper is terrific!

When I work with oil pastels I love Arches oil paper. Great weight and quality. Arches is hard to beat.

Wholeheartedly agree! Before I knew about it, I was trying to do graphite drawings on Rives BFK (a horrible paper for graphite lol). Switching to Arches was transformative. It's super smooth, but also still has a beautiful fuzzy texture to it. My favorite drawing paper by far.

I'll have to try Arches oil paper out!