Rough Sketch Versus Fully Rendered Drawing

It’s Relative to the Individual

What’s the difference between a rough sketch versus a fully rendered drawing? I post my work and will label some as a rough sketch. Invariably I’ll get the comment that it’s too good to be called a “rough sketch”. And while I appreciate the comment, there are a couple of major differences between the sketch and the fully rendered drawing.

One difference is time. A rough sketch for me, takes anywhere from thirty minutes to an hour and a half tops. A fully rendered drawing can take two to four weeks for an 8”x10” portrait. The reason why the rendered drawing takes so much longer leads me to the second difference.

Detail. With a rough sketch, you can tell that it’s a drawing. With one of my fully rendered drawings, you can easily mistake it for a photograph. I’ve had to correct people who have assumed that I’m a photographer and wanted me to shoot glamor shots of their pets. The amount of detail is what fools the eye into thinking that the drawing is a photo. I strive to capture the personality of each animal. The fur should look like you can reach out and pet it. I want to capture as much reflected detail in the highlights of the animal’s eyes.

Rough sketches take 30 minutes to an hour and a half. (Daily sketch – Myra Naito 2014)

A fully rendered drawing can take 2-4 weeks. (Tiger in Repose – Myra Naito, 2008)

I totally get it.

I understand and appreciate where people are coming from when they tell me about my rough sketches and their inability to draw a decent stick figure (which I still firmly believe is an imagined limitation and a skill that can be taught). One could argue that my rough sketches do have quite a bit of detail, but side by side, there’s a huge difference. Yes, I’ll admit that I can’t help but capture as much detail as possible in everything I do. That is my style and it’s the main reason why I rarely doodle or do caricatures. Both are frustratingly minimalistic.

Not that those styles are any less than what I do. They are completely different and take their own type of skill. A skill that eludes me. Trust me, I’ve tried! I happen to know a fantastic caricature artist, Mr. Glen Hanson, who is amazingly talented and I envy the way he can capture a likeness with so few lines. But even for Glen, the difference between a sketch and fully rendered piece will boil down to time and detail.

So I hope that explains what I mean when I label my artwork as a rough sketch versus fully rendered. And thanks so much to all of you who make the comments that you do. I always appreciate your support and kind words.