#365 drawings: girl and dog 3/365

I don't like "faking" it with figure drawing.  It goes against years of figure drawing classes from high school through college.  Because I have a degree in visual art and not illustration, I wasn't ever taught how to fake it, or draw a person without a model.  So as I've illustrated my book, I've used pictures of actual people as models.  That is how I draw, from life preferably (though not at all feasibly) and from pictures otherwise.  The main character is my daughter, so that is pretty easy, but her older siblings are modeled after some older cousins who live two states away.  That has been tricky.  But I am changing the layout of the first page with all of the siblings together.  And I have no new reference pictures of my niece (just of the dog).  So today I faked it.

very rough sketch!

 
I've got to get better at drawing people from my head if I want to get any faster with illustration.  I'm a little better than I give myself credit for, but a long way off from where I want to be.  I still think reference pictures are the best for complicated poses (and always for faces for me).  But they can also be a crutch and slow me down.  I'm still learning how to transition from fine artist to illustrator.  (While maintaining quality and being consistent with my style...  Not an easy task.)  It takes a lot of practice.

I don't think I'll use my illustrations for my book for my daily drawings much...  (not knowing the "rules" is a bad thing) but I might throw some in sometimes.  (especially when I get no other drawings in that day, because of all the work I did on an "official" illustration).