Illustration - three friends

Our final assignment with pen, ink and watercolor wash was to draw 3 animals under a tree, and to give two arrangements of the grouping. Our instructor had brought into class a box of mounted photo's that he had salvaged in Cambridge one day. They were probably being dumped because most people find their reference photo's on the internet now a days. I know I used to have a box of reference photos that I tossed as not needing any more a while ago.  Anyway he though he could make use of them so he grabbed the boxes and as it turned out he was right, he could use them as a teaching aid. There were a lot of animal pictures and some people shots in the mix, we didn't use any of the people photos but most of us selected at least one of the animal reference photo's to use in our illustration. I picked a fawn. Then when I got home I had to add two animals to make the three I needed. I decided to use a kitten and a dog. Reference dog photos I have from last summer when I was practicing drawing animals the kitten I had to go look for, but I found a few possible images without much trouble.

I was finally able to sit down with this assignment yesterday afternoon, I finished the main sketch (picture on the left above) then did a separate sketch of a larger kitten that I used just the head of on the 2nd version. When I went to transfer everything to the watercolor paper for the second view I just transferred down the fawn and the tree from the first drawing then added in the dog (reversed), and the new kitten sketch instead of the previous animals. I painted both drawings together, going back and forth between them as I used different colors.  I didn't want to have to mix the colors for the fawn twice. White spots on the fawn were done using the frisket that I purchased for my first watercolor wash illustration.

I really, really need to take a watercolor class, I am not thrilled with my colors or my technique. But overall I think they aren't too bad for a beginner.

We are now moving on to colored pencils, which is going to make me much happier, I love using colored pencils, so stay tuned for my next Illustration.  An emergency vehicle in trouble, or a fire truck at a fire, right now I am not sure which it will be but have to decide soon as we will be starting the final drawing in the next class.

Per usual comments are welcome.