Earlier this year I completed my first drawing ever on black paper! I’ve been wanting to do one of these for a long time! I always struggle to draw white dogs and I thought maybe it would be easier on black paper. It was a really interesting process, but definitely had it’s ups and downs. I really struggled with the eyes since the outline of the eyes was in black on the black paper. I didn’t quite have the shape right at first. My other big struggle was that the pencil wasn’t covering as solidly on the black paper as it does on my usual Bristol paper. In my images below I had to brighten the contrast a bit, unfortunately in real life the white is not quite so bright. I took a long break while working on this drawing and bought some pastel pencils and a piece of pastel paper to start over. However, I didn’t really like how that one was coming out either, so after a month or so I ended up coming back to this drawing.
One thing I did really enjoy was how nicely the white covered darker colors. Part of that was because I invested in the Caran d’Ache white pencil; expensive, but completely worth the cost. I’ve seen other artists mention that it’s the best white pencil they have as well, which is admittedly why I decided to give it a try. I used a looser style with this which was also kind of nice. Instead of my usual 25 hours for an 8 x 10 drawing I think the whole thing only took about 18 hours or so.
I really love the soft pastel blended backgrounds, but they are MESSY and also some of them are not so good to be breathing in. Given that I’ve already inhaled over a lifetime’s share of sanded drywall filler stuff (my basement flooded and it was a total disaster) I don’t want to breathe in anything that I don’t really need to. Anyway, since the pencils took to this paper differently they blended a bit more than normal and I think I still achieved a pastel-ish kind of look. I kept it with the color theme after some debate. I almost went for the contrast, but I’m glad I didn’t. I really love these colors.
Here’s a comparison of my photoshopped version to a version that more closely matches the real life drawing. As you can see the drawing on the right is a little darker. Not necessarily bad, it just isn’t what I was going for. Since my main goal was experimentation and to possibly sell prints, I’m not concerned about enhancing the contrast. If I were to sell the original, I would obviously present my lesser photoshopped version or let the person see it in real life. One day I hope to do an art show with all the drawings in my shelter dog series. I have done 7 now I believe, but one I am not satisfied with. I’ll either have to re-do that one at some point or create a substitute. That particular drawing is of a Lab and my reference photo was a little blurred because the little bugger kept moving – typical Lab! 
I’m going to try to get this up to date by the end of the year. We’ll see.
Cheers! (Where everybody knows your name.)
Annie's Art Blog 