Sheepish Dog

A sheepish TillyAFTER A day writing an article I get a brief chance to draw and to try, as I’ve done on numerous occasions (for example in March), to catch Tilly the bookshop border collie in sheepish mood.

I’ve drawn this with a Rotring Tikki Graphic pen, a disposable technical pen which has waterproof pigmented ink. But when I added the colour I realised that I’d missed a small but expressive feature of Tilly’s; she has two light brown spots above her eyes which help to give her a certain innocently worried look.

Close up

sheepish close up

When I scanned the drawing I accidentally left the scanner on the high res setting that I’d been using for a book illustration I’d been working on. Computer resolution has come along so much in the past decade but, as this high res detail shows, you’re still not getting the full texture of a drawing when you see it same size on screen.

My fiddly pen work becomes freer and calligraphic on this scale. The watercolour is from my new Bijou box, which has naturally become my favourite.

If anything Tilly looks even more worried.