Drawing a Wolf and a Fox

I’ve been experimenting with new drawing techniques and tools including those by Pentel and I came up with two drawings of wild animals – a wolf and a fox.

Wolf Drawing

I was supposed to draw a black and tan wolf for one of my clients and I decided to train myself in drawing this animal which I consider one of the most beautifully looking beasts on ink or pencil drawn pictures. I had been thinking about drawing a wolf for a long time before and I did not miss the opportunity to do it now. I preferred to kill two birds with one stone by drawing the animal I wished to draw so much and by experimenting with mixing ink and color pencils. I did not refuse to use my favorite cross-hatching drawing technique to make this wolf’s head drawing though. I have also made a video showing the wolf drawing process.

The wolf drawing is made with a pen and color pencils

Watch this video on Youtube

Fox Drawing

The second animal was a fox, of course. A wolf and a fox are deemed as a natural couple here in Ukraine as they are very common Ukrainian and Russian folktales characters. They are portrayed as their children’s godfather (wolf) and godmother (fox). In folklore the fox is sly while the wolf is naïve and somewhat dull, that is the reason why they are friends and rivals at the same time. Russian and Ukrainian people imbibe those tales with their mothers’ milk, therefore it was unquestionable that if there was a wolf, there should be a fox somewhere around. Thus the next drawing was to be a fox.

The fox was drawn while experimenting with drawing supplies which had been kindly presented to me by PentelArts. The main tool used here was a Pentel Pocket Brush Pen which is my favorite drawing tool for creating expressive outlines and strokes. Using those tools, I had to alter my drawing technique and style a little, although the drawing was still comparatively minimalist with a lot of economy of lines. People who had already seen the drawing of the fox said the animal looked fresh, vibrant and alive. I am very much pleased with people’s positive responses to my experimental fox and wolf drawings and I am satisfied with the results of my drawing experiments.

Art supplies from Pentel were used to make this fox drawing

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I have three little children (two boys and a girl). They are always looking forward to new animal drawings by their father. Every time I produce a good animal drawing I frame the image to give it to my kids who are waiting with anticipation for a new picture to be hung on the wall in their room. They already have a small animal drawings gallery.

Pictures of animals drawn by me on the wall of my children's room

By the way, if you love these drawings of a wolf and a fox, you can purchase high resolution images (digital files) from me to make high quality prints for any purposes. Just let me know if you want them.

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Pentel – the Best Drawing Tools Ever

It seems that my dream of possessing high quality drawing tools has at last come true. I have received a parcel from Germany containing 3,5 kg (almost 8 pounds) of pens, markers and brushes from Pentel. Having opened the parcel, I was so much in awe that I stood motionless for a while contemplating this marvelous treasure I’ve being coveting for a long time since I first discovered Pentel drawing tools. In fact, Pentel art tools are the best I tried so far.

I fell in love with Pentel when I first saw a Pentel pocket brush pen in the Internet. I worked for a web and graphic design company at that time and constantly faced the problem of being unable to easily create a good looking outline for sketches and drawings I made for the company. I used a regular ink pen and had to do a number of strokes to make a pressure sensitive effect for outlines. I thought it would be good to have a kind of a brush with a fine tip allowing me to draw with ink controlling pressure and thus to vary the line thickness as needed to create beautiful looking outlines. I started looking for such drawing tool and this is when I discovered a Pentel pocket brush pen.

Pentel Pocket Brush Pen is a pen with a refillable cartridge containing pigmented ink which feeds a fine brush tip which is the most awesome element of the pen as it allows varying the line thickness in a single stroke. I was very much frustrated to find out that it was almost impossible to buy Pentel products in Ukraine. It seems that Pentel Co. Ltd is not present in the Ukrainian market so far. I was lucky to have a good friend in Berlin, Germany, who was kind enough to purchase and send me my first Pentel brush pen. And I was absolutely amazed at how flexible I became in drawing after I had tried the brush pen. This drawing tool had even exceeded my expectations. All good qualities of the brush pen make it a must have drawing tool for various kinds of drawing “genres” and styles ranging from manga and comics drawing to picturesque landscape paintings.

Using Drawing Tools from Pentel (Video)

Watch this video on Youtube

Watch this video on Youtube

The first commercial drawings I created with my new Pentel brush pen were cute panda bears drawn for a teacher from the USA William Cunningham. I made a few videos showing how those drawings had been made and uploaded them on Youtube. This is one of those videos:

Drawing a Giant Panda with a Pentel Brush Pen

This cute panda bear was drawn with a Pentel Pocket Brush Pen

Watch this video on Youtube

And this is when my drawings were noticed by guys from PentelArts – an online Pentel store in Europe. They really liked how I used the brush pen in the video and suggested sending me some more brush pens (including color ones) to further experiment with them and experience in full how Pentel tools can simplify work of an artist and make his/her artworks look better and more expressive. Since then Pentel brush pens had become my indispensable drawing tools in almost every drawing I create (just watch videos on my Youtube channel to get convinced).

I had not dared to use color brush pens for some time as I had been waiting for a good drawing commission but I got mostly black & white portraits and illustrations orders. And since I was eager to use them I took those color brush pens with me on my vacation at the Sea of Azov to experiment a little with a marine scenery painting. Here are a couple of sketches I had made using color brush pens from Pentel:

Sketches Drawn with Color Brush Pen from Pentel

A sketch drawn with color Pentel brush pens

Extensive usage of Pentel pocket brush pens and mentioning it in my drawing videos has not left people from PentelArts untouched and I was asked whether I wanted some other drawing supplies from Pentel to experiment with as I used some analogues they had in their product range. And how could I resist such a generous offer if my love for Pentel had begun from the first brush pen? I agreed anticipating my new experience with one of the best drawing tools brand. But what they had sent totally surprised and amazed me! Color and black brush pens, brushes for aquarelle painting, sign pens, outline markers, oil pastels and pastels for drawing on fabric, gel rollers and other drawing tools are now at my disposal. I will definitely try them all and make my best to master drawing with each of these tools. I will make a lot of videos showing performances of pens and brushes from Pentel. And I want to say big THANK YOU to PentelArts for this wonderful gift and for inspiring me to create new artworks fitting the highest quality level of Pentel drawing tools.

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Drawing a Portrait from an Old Photograph

Another project commissioned by Andrew Hennigan was a portrait drawn from an old photograph. I was supposed to draw a pen and ink portrait from a small full-length photograph of one of Andrew’s great grandfathers who was born in 1879. The picture itself was taken in about 1900. The man on the photograph was an enthusiastic amateur photographer and I believe that is why this photograph had the best quality among other pictures of Andrew’s great grandfathers. Andrew has a dream of having good portraits of all his great grandparents one day as their vintage photographs are either too small or of bad quality to look good hanging on the wall. I hope that I will be able to help Andrew bring his dream to life when he finds usable photos of his ancestors whose portraits he would like to have. And I appreciate allowing me to show the original photograph, the final portrait and the drawing video in my blog.

Giving a new life to an old photograph

Watch this video on Youtube

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Drawing an Ink Portrait from a Picture

Today I would like to tell you about my recent portrait assignment. It was another portrait-from-photo commission. The portrait was created for a Communication Consultant Andrew Hennigan, based in Aix en Provence, France, and Stockholm, Sweden. The man teaches people how to communicate properly and professionally. Not many people know that good communication skills are in fact the core of a success almost in any sphere of today’s life beginning from an individual’s private life to big companies’ popularity and recognition in their market niche. Decent communication skills are far from being something people are born with. Actually, I believe there are more people who constantly face annoying and life-ruining problems while communicating with other people than those who are able to speak clearly, convincingly and eloquently. A lot of people cannot verbalize their thoughts, some have fear of public speaking, and others do not like how their voices sound or they are self-conscious about their appearance. Therefore if you experience these or similar problems and want to overcome those difficulties or you just want improvements in your communication abilities, I believe Andrew Hennigan is the man who can be of assistance, especially after I noticed how good he is in expressing his thoughts in multiple languages.

But let’s get back to the portrait. As usually it was an ink portrait drawn using cross-hatching technique on an A4 paper sheet. You are welcome to watch the video below to see the whole drawing process, although I had to speed up the video in order to upload it on Youtube. Andrew was very kind to allow showing the portrait and his photograph I had used as a reference. And I hope he will love the original I sent him and will find a proper usage of the high resolution digital copy of the portrait. Thanks for hiring me, Andrew!

Pen and Ink Portrait Drawn from a Photograph (pic + video)

Watch this video on Youtube

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