When I was 19 I was living in an apartment with my ex, a friend and his sister. I’d never had small animals and had gotten two turtles early. Then I got two rats, two hairless female Dumbo rats. One was Chloe and the other, an albino, was named the oh-so-unoriginal but still pretty name, Ruby.
The other day on Facebook I was nominated by a fellow friend (and a really great artist, Amy Lehr Miller) for an Art Challenge that is going around. I’ve seen artists like Adebanji Adeola Alade (find him on Facebook here) doing it and when she nominated me I felt special to be in the same challenge. Not that it meant I was anywhere near that caliber! It just felt neat.
So I sat down with a picture of my long gone friend, Ruby, and started to draw. I thought I’d have at least an hour and a half, but unbeknownst to me my husband was making dinner plans with friends and after 25 minutes I had to give up the drawing and run out the door.
Here it is:
“Ruby” by Rebecca Galardo
I’m pleased with it, though the lines of the cage are wobbly and I was interrupted while doing the inside of her ear. I might try again, but honestly it was just a fun sketch to do.
I chose her for a couple of reasons: I wanted the first post of the artist challenge to be special, I wanted to push myself to draw an animal (I don’t) and didn’t want to start with one of my cats or dogs (fur intimidates me when it comes to pencil) and I love rats.
It was drawn with a very old (like at LEAST 17 years old) Faber Castell B pencil in the gray Cachet sketchbook by Daler Rowney.
Rebecca Galardo Art 