Worst Fear...Sketch

Katrina Fowler · 8 Aug 2017, 04:37

Is this too dark? To difficult to understand? Weird perspective?

I lived on a farm where my parents raised a variety of live stock. My father took dogs to the forest for a 'walk' and often they didn't return. I had a fear of my new puppy attacking our chickens leading to the inevitable 'walk' to the forest.

Gary Wilkinson · 8 Aug 2017, 05:05

The perspective makes the little girl appear almost like a giant (or the people like dolls), so you might want to lay out a basic perspective grid first. I really like the idea of the piece and how you have the dead chicken in the foreground which helps give it a sense of depth. The pose of the girl seems a little unnatural to me, perhaps having her head faced down towards the ground would show her sadness/shock more, or having one arm whip away the tears whilst the other arm is holding her up would be a bit more dynamic.

I wouldn't worry too much about it been too dark at this stage. Just focus on getting a good sketch first (of course keep in mind how you want the light to play out whilst you set up the scene). When you do focus on the lighting I think that having a silhouetted dead chicken works really well and maybe having part of the girl under a cast shadow and partially lit with cool light through the trees would look interesting too. Also, it might be cool to have some of the feathers leading your eye towards the dad and dog who are way off in the background.

Look forward to seeing how it goes, good luck

RHirsch · 8 Aug 2017, 05:19

Wow, what a fear to have had as a child. I like the chicken and feathers trailing off. I do think that it's difficult to tell that the Dad is going to do away with the dog though, as the piece doesn't tell us the dog is responsible for the chicken's death. Maybe if he was closer to us and had feathers in his mouth?

TessaW · 8 Aug 2017, 17:33

So sad! I agree with @RHirsch comments. And like @Gary-Wilkinson said, I think the perspective could be worked out a bit better, because the scale seems off between the girl and her father/dog. It looks like you've indicated the roof line of the chicken coop at the top of the image. So if she were to stand up, she'd be taller than the coop, but yet her father is several feet shorter than the roofline of the coop.

In my top drawing, this is a different angle of what I'm envisioning based from your sketch.

In my bottom drawing I've shown what she would look like if she were standing up in relation to the coop and I've corrected how the father should be in relation to the coop, based on the perspective and the fact that he is probably taller than her.

I really like the direction you are going with the perspective, though. Just thinks it needs to be clarified a bit. Can't wait to see more!

tombarrettillo · 9 Aug 2017, 03:16

I think for best clarity of story/theme, might be good to show the girl and father struggling over the dog, not violently, but the girl holding (hugging?) the dog, and the father holding a taught leash. Maybe a dead chicken and a trail of feathers that lead to the dog.

MOO · 9 Aug 2017, 07:44

My mom had that happen to her quite a few times So sad. No other comments. everyone else has done a good job with that.

Katrina Fowler · 18 Aug 2017, 16:11

@gary-wilkinson Thank you for your feed back! Yeah I can see now that the perspective is way off.

@RHirsch Great suggestion on the feathers in the mouth! Thx

@TessW Thank you so much for the feed back. And I completely agree the perspective is way off! I was trying to push the POV from super close to the dead chicken to the Way far away background where the dog is being led into the forest. I'm definitely going to have to rework that.

@tombarrettillo That would be an interesting composition. I'll work up some different thumbs for this idea. Thank you.

@Marsha-Kay-Ottum-Owen Yeah it was super sad when the dogs never came back from their walk.

TessaW · 18 Aug 2017, 16:30

@katrina-fowler said in Worst Fear...Sketch:

@gary-wilkinson Thank you for your feed back! Yeah I can see now that the perspective is way off.

@RHirsch Great suggestion on the feathers in the mouth! Thx

@TessW Thank you so much for the feed back. And I completely agree the perspective is way off! I was trying to push the POV from super close to the dead chicken to the Way far away background where the dog is being led into the forest. I'm definitely going to have to rework that.

I think it could be as simple as shortening the depth of the chicken coup and maybe placing the dad a bit higher. A trail of chicken feathers to the dog, might also help with clearing up the perspective, but you'll have to play around.