Sketching Opal

As it's been stated before and probably real noticeable by all the posts I've shared with Opal, she's one of my favorite models.

After working the page with Opal for Halloween, I started playing with Christmas ideas by dressing her in a Santa suit.

I start out lightly sketching the bear....body and all as it looks in real life.  Then I start lightly sketching over whatever clothing I might want to place on the bear.  Once I like how it's going, I start getting darker with my pencil........erasing lines I don't want to show (initial body lines in particular).

Here is my initial sketch after satisfied with placement of clothing.....

This is after further shading using hatching ......still in graphite.

Next I wanted to add some props to go along with Opal dressed up.  I have always loved the simple "Charlie Brown" Christmas tree so I sketched my own.  Plus added a sack of toys.

Showing it all together.........

I didn't stop there................where I scanned along the way, I took the initial sketch I scanned and cleaned it up making it into a pencil outline.  After printing it off, I decided to play with some color using the Albrecht Durer watercolor pencils (dry).  This next shows the steps after color and then with pen and ink for added definition.  This was done on copier paper so I didn't get any nice effect with pencil and paper like I would had I done this in one of my sketchbooks.  Again........this is just my experimenting and playing.  I often do this when working out ideas..........not always in a sketchbook but separate paper I later tuck in the sketchbook. Many of these sketchbooks have pockets at the back (sometimes front).