15 Minute Sketchbook Challenge: Antelope

1. Antelope Class Introduction: Hello. Hello, everyone. My name is Ivan Florentino Ramirez, and I have a brand new Skillshare class. Now, for this course, there's a special challenge for you, where it's going to be all in about 20 minutes. We're going to be drawing a sitting antelope, using a ballpoint pen only and a tiny sketchbook. So this is for all my students to help with your confidence in drawing a realistic animal, you won't be able to erase because we are using pen only. It'll help with landing proportions, using a reference photo for likeness, going into detail without committing to a large drawing. This is only a sketch. This is going to be a step by step all the way through in just one video. Now, I graduated from California State University Fullerton. I am a graphic designer, digital artist, painter. I work with fine art with mediums like graphic pencil, watercolor, acrylic, and many more. Now, this class will pair perfectly with my shorter 15 to 20 minute courses from drawing a monkey and even pop culture where I drew Chu Baca using ballpoint pen only. And if you're looking for a longer form course, I also uploaded where we're using watercolor paint on a small canvas board or a beach planer painting. So, are you ready to begin this quick challenge? Let's begin. 2. Class Summary & Materials Needed: Hello, everyone, and welcome to the summary for this course. So this sketch was inspired by the photography and videos that I took when I went to Honolulu, Hawaii, to the Honolulu Zoo. There were so many great animals to look at, but it was the resting Bogo antelope that really drew me to it because it looked like it was at peace. It was resting, and the day was sunny and pretty warm. So it kind of matched the vibe that I was going for. It was in a great pose, and I wanted to draw more of a larger animal and flip my sketchbook in a horizontal position. So this was a great choice for this 15 minute sketch. Now, I did upload two different reference photos that I found online, but I couldn't find the original reference photo that I used, but I found two poses that are very similar, but you can't freeze frame this video that I took when I was there and find the pose that you like the most. But when it comes to materials, you don't need much. You need a tiny sketchbook, anyone that you have, and several ballpoint pens, black preferably. But if you have blue ink, that is fine. And part of this challenge is using a confined space like a tiny sketchbook, so you don't have to commit to something large while still pushing yourself to go fully detailed with realism. So this sketchbook is five by 7 ". But if you don't have a sketchbook with you, you can cut up small pieces of paper in horizontal format that will be perfectly suited for this 15 minute challenge. So I hope this inspires you to keep on pushing when it comes to drawing, taking your sketchbook everywhere you go. And specifically, if you do happen to go on walks on trips, on your next vacation, this challenge will push you to people watch, draw animals, and just sketch anything that you like. We can draw our M everyday lives, have fun, take a challenge to draw things we've never drawn before, and also challenge us to draw quickly and help fill up that sketchbook that you've had for a while. So these are the perfect challenges and ideas to do so. So are you ready to begin? Let's get started. 3. 15 Minute Ballpoint Pen Sketch: Alright, everyone, welcome to this creative momentum challenge with this fast one sitting project that you can do very easily all in under 20 minutes. The focus of this teaching is to practice drawing an animal. In this case, we're drawing a Bogo antelope that's sitting on the grass in a tiny sketchbook just using ballpoint pen. Now, this is a short, simple class that anyone can do. It's a great challenge for you to just keep on drawing and improving drawing details and animals. Here are some practical tips for the ballpoint pen. We're going to work from light to dark because you cannot erase. We're going to use multiple passes instead of pressing too hard. Again, rotate your sketchbook to maintain natural hand movement. You don't want your arm to be uncomfortable, and we're going to keep details slightly simplified due to the small format. This is part of that challenge. Since we're not committing to something large, we don't have to go overly crazy with detail, but just enough to put everything that we've learned, drawing animals, doing shading all with my courses here on Skillshare. Now this approach will give you a controlled and detailed drawing even at small scale. All right, so let's start by drawing the head. Now, let's establish the gesture. This is going to be using light pressure with the pen. We're going to start very light with the pen pressure, barely grazing the page, and we're starting off with the head. And you can somewhat do this outline to kind of know where you're going, starting from the left. We can draw simple curved lines to show the elk's relaxed seated posture for its spine, at a rounded rib cage or oval or the neck, the mouth, and the horns, and even the ears. And usually I do this with some gesture drawing in various shapes, but because we're drawing so light with very light pressure, I'm doing a very thin outline that we're going to be going over with to add shadows eventually. So we indicated the head position with a small oval, ankle slightly upward, and then I'm sketching loose lines for the neck, the body, its legs, the tail, and one part of the leg forward while the other one is curved under its body. So that's how you build the form. So you might be wondering why we're creating a silhouette. It's very important for readability. And with that combination of using loose lines with your pen and not putting in so much pressure, this is going to help us in the long run. By creating a silhouette, we're drawing a strong and instantly recognizable shape. And because the elk is sitting, this is a very long horizontal shape that goes all across our sketchbook. So doing this in the beginning is very important. Keep it light, simple and loose. And don't forget to zoom in and out of your reference photo. You want to make sure that proportions are correct, even from close up and from far away. Now, what I'm doing is going back and it looked like I made the mouth a little bit too small, but I started with making the nostrils, the mouth a little bit bigger, and working into those eyes. And again, I'm using curve lines for the eye, indicating the pupil and part of those cheekbones and even indicating those shapes for those white spots that it has against the brow. Now that we focused on silhouette, it should clearly read even without much detail. Now, let me give you a quick tip on drawing an eye, especially for an animal. So when drawing animal eyes, we need to prioritize capturing a precise outline and shape first, and it has to be specific to the species. So adding sharp white highlights for that glassy effect and even using deep contrasts between the dark pupil, the iris, and the surrounding eyelids is important because as you can see, there's a distinct white stripe underneath the eye and black on the top. The eye is a sphere, so focus on the eyelids wrapping around this spherical shape. And notice that I started drawing it as an almond shape, and I made my way outward now onto the antlers. And if you notice on the reference photo, the eyes are really high up kind of close to his antlers and the ears. So as long as you notice those features, continue with the antlers, the ears, and overlapping those loose lines that we created previously with a little bit darker ones. Now these are more controlled, precise and confident lines that we're tracing over our loose silhouette of our elk. Now we're in the defining phase and detailing those features that make this recognizable. I'm shaping out those white first stripes, starting from the back on the top, all the way down and leaving those pure white from the paper itself. And these particular white stripes, I'm also keeping them loose first, because in between those, as you can see that the reddish brown fur is going to be filled in with a little bit of the scribble type of overlapping that we'll do with the pen later on. I don't know how dark I want to go in for it yet. So it's important to go loose and very light in this stage. And again, make sure to follow the form, to keep the elk rounded, keep it from looking flat because we're still thinking in that three D form. So now we're going to suggest ground and weight. So we're going to add a few horizontal strokes beneath the body to indicate the ground. We're going to darken that area directly under the elk to create a cast shadow. This is very, very important. Alright, so now as we're building the form, we're going to refine the structure using slightly firmer lines. And we even indicated how it's sitting with a little bit of blades of grass and rocks. Now that we have established that the elk is sitting, we're going to add a little bit of shadows underneath that it's grounded, and this is going to give us the opportunity to start playing with value and adding pressure with the ballpoint pen to add shadows, medium tones, and light tones. The only thing that I'm doing are using overlapping scribble lines directly underneath the elk, just using quick back and forth motions. The more and more you layer, the darker it becomes. So if you go right up to the elk's tail, the belly, the folded legs, that's where you want it to be darker. And as you go outward, create middle tones by using less. This is how we're going to create variety, and it really will create that nice shadow that we like, and it helps with the realism. And so we're going to shape the chest with a gentle outward curve. Elk have a strong deep front torso. And to define the folded legs, the front legs are bent and tucked under the chest. The back legs are folded to the side, forming a triangular silhouette, but with just one leg sticking right in front of its head. Now, this is the part where we're going to start the ballpoint pen shading techniques, starting with the ear. Now, inside of the ear and the horns, we're adding these shadows underneath because with this photo, it's clear that the light is coming from the top left, meaning the shadows are going to be on the opposite side, underneath, on the right side. And adding in all those darker shadings and layerings of the fur on top of the forehead and the muzzle area with the nose and nostrils where it's darker. Now, adding the neck mass, it's thicker on the base and tapering toward the head. Now, we're keeping everything light and simple at first, blocking in those antlers and the ears as well. So I drew the eye as a small almond shape, placed slightly forward on the head. I indicated the muzzle with a rounded, slightly squared shape. I added subtle lines for the nostrils and mouth, which eventually will be colored darker and filled in with the pen. So out of the entire body of the elk, you'll notice that this is where we're going to use the most pressure, the most overlapping with our ballpoint pen to create those dark fur areas. In comparison to the red brown fur, that'll be more of the middle tone. And those designated areas and shapes that we created, those are going to be the pure white from our paper only. Doing this from the very beginning will save you on time and will keep you from any type of overcorrecting if you don't leave some of that paper as is for those highlights and white spots. Oh Now, in order to suggest fur, we're going to draw short strokes in the direction that it's going. A little bit of the short strokes are going to go up and they're pointed almost like triangles. You'll definitely see this on its back. We're going to see this right underneath the neck and the chest area where usually elk have thicker hair, and we already indicated the fur on its tail. So we're going to be using layering rather than heavy pressure. Lots of layering to create those shadows. So I'm applying hatching and parallel lines to create shadows under the body, the neck, and the legs as well. Now, this is the part that might take the longest because we are going to be covering the entire body. You're going to see me going back and forth between the legs, underneath its belly, on its back, and in between those white lines that we created as shapes. Go sparingly, you do not have to cover every inch just enough to suggest the fur. This is where your artistic choices come in hand. Notice underneath the neck where I'm doing these squiggle lines where I go from medium and very loosely feather it out and even following the form to create that nice rounded look using medium to short strokes. Again, in the darker areas, make sure to overlap them and create a little bit more pressure. And I'm also using a lot of scribble shading, sparingly for organic fur texture as well. And most important, leave the highlights untouched. The ballpoint pen relies on preserving the white of that paper. And because this particular sketchbook is somewhat tanned, this also helps with having varied tones that go from light to dark. Now, remember, when we created that silhouette, I left some shapes like the stripes on its back to indicate where we're going to be shading the medium tones and leaving things white. This is definitely going to help us with that. And now I'm doing that scribbling to indicate the fur all on its body. And again, it doesn't have to be perfect. This challenge is to keep us drawing, create some realism confined within a small space of a small sketchbook. We're just trying to improve anatomy nailing proportions while having an eye out for detail and accuracy. Now with this pass with the ballpoint pen, we're going to reinforce key contours. That being the neck, the back, and the antlers. I'm going to be selecting a few darker accents for contrast. So as you can see, where the cache shadow is, that's going to be a lot darker, a lot more pressure, but also layering. While I'm using those scribble lines and also following the form with some curved stroke lines, I'm also rounding out that form. You can see that on its back where one of the legs are bent, the neck area to keep it from looking flat. And even as we're adding this detail, try to avoid overworking some areas. Ballpoint pen builds quickly, and too much layering can also make a drawing muddy. So purposefully leave some of the white area from the page as is. Use the cast shadows by looking at the reference photo and make artistic decisions to push it far enough, but not overwhelmingly so. So there you have it. We created a sitting Bogo antelope in about 15 minutes using ballpoint pen only. No pencil, no erasing, just a reference photo, and lots and lots of layering with the pen. Hopefully you enjoyed this course. This was a great challenge. This will really help you improve with your speed, your accuracy, proportions, and also realism in a small confined space. Make sure to upload your drawing in the project section of this class, leave a review, and thank you so much, and I will see you in the next one. Bye bye.