Hi Sonia, many thanks for your reply.
Nah, I’m not necessarily talking about the actual changes to be made to your current drawing. My point is more about the preparation phase in general of any of your future projects.
I never jump into a new project without a preparation, in other words, “designing” phase. I collect references, study them, simulate a variety of possible compositions fully utilizing photoshop, complete my final reference, and then finally start drawing. Therefore, the designing phase usually takes twice or more time compared to the actual drawing phase.
All the suggestions I’ve made about this dog portrait are something you can definitely foresee in the prep phase, before you actually start drawing. So I would recommend that you post your “plan”, i.e. your composition ideas on the forum, before you start drawing/painting. Compared to pen and ink works, pastel works are easier to make corrections, but the only thing you can rarely change or correct is the composition. Composition is something you can never overthink. Composition is something you must be totally confident with before holding a pencil or a pastel stick for the actual drawing. Composition is where you can make the best use of your creativity. All possible efforts should be made to come up with a good composition.
I remember one of our forum buddies did actually post his composition idea of a newly planned bird drawing. So I suggested my composition idea using the same reference photo. Eventually he came up with a new idea which was totally different from his original idea. And the final composition idea was stunning. This going-back-and-forth thought process is critical for finding a composition which you feel just “right”.
You can check the discussion in this topic.
From your artworks posted here so far, I can tell that you are quite a quick learner when it comes to art medium handling. So I think your artistic journey will become even more exciting once you start focusing more on the development of your originality.
Hope my comment is of some use for you!