Magnolia Blossom acrylic portrait magnolia flowers

Well we have a very foggy morning here so I thought I'd put up a picture of what I accomplished yesterday before I go for my run.  We are having an unusually warm winter so far - here is it January and we can sit on the porch because it's almost 70.  Since I am in the office all week I take every chance to watch the birds and get fresh air.  So if I get porch sitting I can either read or draw - guess which I did!!

I was able to put about 3-4 more hours in yesterday and you can see I have the muzzle pretty well laid in.  Trying to get the various planes and angles here and create the rounded face shapes plus be sure to follow the hair growth directions.  I want to show hair-like, but don't want to put each hair in. 

I have pretty much added shading to the top third and am not reworking from top left to bottom where I have lots of graphite now as I don't want to touch the paper with either my hand or my protection sheet.  I don't want to either damage the illusion or hair or create smudges.  Anything else needing correction at this late date I'll have to use the bridge.  Too many hours in this now to get sloppy.

Am finding that I am pretty much using only the .7mm mechanical pencil along with HB, 2B, 4B and 2F pencils and bless my kneadable eraser.  Oh yes, can't forget my trusty hand sharpener, like colored pencils these have to be razor sharp.

This is coming together pretty well, now, just have to complete quite a bit of work in the mouth and lip area to keep it soft and make it look moist.  My challenge then will be to stay in it while I complete the body, not nearly as much fun although chest area will have quite a bit of whispy hair work.