Hidden Ivory

A head shot of an elephant and its left tusk

Sketched from a beautiful photograph courtesy of Cal Butler, this image has been sketched using PASTELS on Pastel Matt Paper.

Marked up and ready to do the blurred back ground

Starting to sketch in the tsuk which will be in focus

Fine tuning the marks on the tusk

Now starting on the left foreleg which will be slightly out of focus

The foreleg is starting to take shape as I work on making the image less sharp the further you go back from the tusk.

At my board sketching the wrinkles of the lower part of the trunk..

Working on the lower trunk and then I'll move up to the forehead and eye

Now adding the lighter tones up the trunk before deapening the shadows within the creases..

Gradually working around the eye and across the fore head

The eye has now appeared and gives the ellies head more shape, the fore head needs to be worked on.

The lighter shadows are mostly sketched in, I'll add the deaper shadows later to give it more depth

Giving the ear a base colour before rubbing back to the paper and starting on the fine detail

Another few hours fine tuning the image with deaper shadows, lumps and bumps etc

That's it, the elephant is now finished, all i need to do is scan it and frame it..