I finally finished the drawing of Matt’s dog in the course. I like the face and ear but had problems with the mouth. If anyone has tips for this area in particular, please let me know.
Other critique and feedback welcome.
Worked on Bristol vellum with prismacolor. I also had trouble with the paper smudging very easily, keeping eraser crumbs and crumbs from the darker pencils stuck on the tooth of the paper. I never had this issue with other paper like bristol smooth
Hi Jennilein -
I’m happy that you are working hard at improving your artwork, watching lessons and posting here. I’m going to attach a few photos and then use those to make some suggestions, per your request.
The first thing I noticed was how it is hard to see the top of the dog’s head - it is very close in value to the fence behind it. Darken the fence and you can improve this.
Since I’m talking about value, there are other areas where you could make the darks darker, which would improve your range of values. You asked about the mouth. That is where the back on the tongue needs to be darker since it is a shadowed area. The dogs lower gum definitely should be darker too. It is primarily black with some reflected light. Even the area under the dogs nose is in shadow and could be darker. The dogs chin line that separates it from the chest shows that more darker values are needed on the chest to create this contrast in values. Look at the black and white image, and then at Matt’s finished drawing and I think you can see what I’m talking about.
The other thing I wanted to mention is the green background. I think you’re off to a good start with the variety of greens used, you just need to add several additional layers. Compare your drawing with Matts. See how the tooth of the paper has better coverage in Matt’s drawing. Re-watch that part of the lesson and he shows you how to give this a more finished look.
I think you’re doing great this early in your learning process. Colored pencils take a lot of time and patience and I think your drawing would be much stronger if you just give it more time for more layers. By the way, I love the eyes on your drawing. They are very nice.
Hope this is helpful.
Terri Robichon
Thank you so much Terri,
as always I appreciate the help and the work you put into the feedback.
Values are really something I struggle with all the time. I have to work harder to build them up.
I think I will leave the dog as he is, though, because I had massive trouble with smudging on this paper (vellum strathmore 400) and I don’t want to ruin the drawing, but I don’t trust the paper at this point.
I will definitely keep the values in mind and pay closer attention with the next drawing.
With the background, I didn’t want it too colourful to not take away from the dog, but I didn’t notice the tooth still being there. I’m always scared of going too dark. 
With the fence, I used the actual colour from the video, but the paper did not get as dark, even though I used a heavy pressure.( I generally have a heavy hand, so this is odd) As I said, I don’t know what it is with me and the paper… The mext exercise will be on mi teintes, I used this a lot with pastel, so I hope I can concentrate on the values more, and less on the paper 
You did a great job. Love.it
