For this project I chose to do a goat because goats are my favorite animal. I began by sketching the outline of the goat and the main shapes. Then I went back with Prismas and blocked in the main values by shading lightly. I did this throughout the piece because I wanted the fur to look uniform but still show a range of value behind it. After that I used browns, yellows, and white stroke marks section by section, and then later went back with a beige colored pencil to keep it from looking too patchy. After I finished all the fur, I went back to do the eyes, mouth, nose, and ears. After that I colored in the background with a few shades of green. I considered making trees in the background, but then I decided that I wanted the focus to be on the goat and didn't want the background to take over the piece.
I really like the color of the goat I was able to develop, and I think the shape of the face looks shows the cuteness of the baby goat well. The fur was a little difficult because I kept having the paper showing through, but it was hard to burnish it without the colors blending too much. I also wish that the fur looked shorter and softer, but I had a hard time figuring out how to layer the colors to do that, because if I layered too much, it began to look too dark and muddled. I also think the goat's facial features need more definition, but I had a hard time doing that without making the lines look to harsh or unnatural. For me it was really hard to figure out what to do with the background as well. In the picture it has my arm holding him, but when I tried that it didn't look good so I decided to greenery in the background instead. I ended up liking this better though because the focus is more on the goat, and adds more contrast to the piece so the goat pops.
Overall I'm happy with the way it turned out, especially since I've never done an animal portrait or done fur with Prismas, but I would like to go back at some point to add more contrast in the fur and fine details to goat's face. I'm glad that I didn't add too much detail to the background, but I think the vibrancy of the green background still overpowers the goat just a little bit. I think adding a few darker values into the fur and more definition to the goat would improve this, but I also didn't want the fur to loose its softness or the goat to loose its babyish face. In the future when doing an animal portrait, I would push the values a little more and not make the mistake of blending colors too early on. I think that having a greater range of values early on and really focusing on and exaggerating the colors from the image itself would help me improve in the future.
I really like the color of the goat I was able to develop, and I think the shape of the face looks shows the cuteness of the baby goat well. The fur was a little difficult because I kept having the paper showing through, but it was hard to burnish it without the colors blending too much. I also wish that the fur looked shorter and softer, but I had a hard time figuring out how to layer the colors to do that, because if I layered too much, it began to look too dark and muddled. I also think the goat's facial features need more definition, but I had a hard time doing that without making the lines look to harsh or unnatural. For me it was really hard to figure out what to do with the background as well. In the picture it has my arm holding him, but when I tried that it didn't look good so I decided to greenery in the background instead. I ended up liking this better though because the focus is more on the goat, and adds more contrast to the piece so the goat pops.
Overall I'm happy with the way it turned out, especially since I've never done an animal portrait or done fur with Prismas, but I would like to go back at some point to add more contrast in the fur and fine details to goat's face. I'm glad that I didn't add too much detail to the background, but I think the vibrancy of the green background still overpowers the goat just a little bit. I think adding a few darker values into the fur and more definition to the goat would improve this, but I also didn't want the fur to loose its softness or the goat to loose its babyish face. In the future when doing an animal portrait, I would push the values a little more and not make the mistake of blending colors too early on. I think that having a greater range of values early on and really focusing on and exaggerating the colors from the image itself would help me improve in the future.