Over the past few days I've been looking at the proportions and anatomy of the horse's head. I had initially set out to do more work on this today but I just wasn't in the mood. Each time I put pencil to paper it all seemed to go wrong. It was at this point I told myself that I should just try to loosen up, relax and do something different. I ended up completely obliterating what I had just drawn with the side of a 6B pencil and started this one instead.

I got my chunky graphite sticks (6B and 8B), my erasers and my Staedtler Mars Lumograph Black pencils, ranging from HB to 8B and worked loose and energetically using expressive line. It's when I work like this that I'm at my most happiest, letting myself go and allowing the materials to help guide me. I like to work to begin with, laying down the initial layer of graphite and then using my erasers to rub out the lighter parts of the subject. I then work back into areas with the pencils to darken. This process is used throughout the entire duration of the drawing and is a constant repetition of adding and taking away until I'm happy with it. 

The drawing is on A3 cartridge paper and I worked from a reference photo I took during my life drawing last Saturday. It's of a beautiful horse called Inca. She is so incredibly pretty and there's so much expression and such kindness in her eyes that I wanted to try and capture this in today's drawing 😍.