Unfinished Works of Art~ Part 1

Hey everyone! You see these amazing masterpieces that have every component of art you could want- lines, shape, positive and negative space, color, form, hue, intensity, to name a few! What if I told you that a drawing (or painting) doesn’t have to be complete to be amazing? Here’s an example.

Unfinished portrait of Washington- Gilbert Stuart

This painting is obviously unfinished, but that doesn’t detract from the appeal. In fact, most artists that painted portraits of esteemed people (before there were cameras) only painting their head and shoulders in the beginning (because said esteemed person has better things to do than sit around all day as s/he is being painted.) Once the artist got those parts, the patron was free to go, and the artist free to continue to paint the patron in whatever garment and setting the commissioner requested.

[Info courtesy of information I retained after visiting the National Portrait Gallery in Washington D.C..]

While my art is nowhere near Stuart’s painting, I do like to draw things, but leave some of them unfinished. The drawing today is a brown wolf  (my favorite animal. If you want to see some of my other wolf drawings, click here and here.)

First, I started with the eye.

Then, I found a reference photo that had the eye in the similar position. This helps me place the fur. After I chose the photo, I started with the fur around the eye.

There’s no sketching pencil involved in this drawing at all. It’s all done with colored pencil.

When I finished with the fur around the eye, I moved on to the fur going up towards the ear and the outline of the cheek fur.

Then, I colored the ear.

After that, I filled in the rest of the face and put some fur leading to the muzzle.

That’s it! My intentionally unfinished wolf. Keep on the lookout for Unfinished Works of Art~ Part 2, where you’ll see my next intentionally unfinished wolf drawing. Also, check out our YouTube Channel here where you can see a few of Kathleen’s stop-motion movies!

~Elizabeth and Kathleen