I originally got the idea for drawing broken bottles from a pencil artist that I greatly envy and respect, Matti Kataja. His piece "Break Away" was total inspiration for this drawing I have done. So I just wanted to make mention of him and thank him.

I am finally done with this. It has been on my desk for about 2 months I am guessing. I have countless hours into this project. I have to admit it's a great relief to finally have it done. I did enjoy the drawing but I am ready to move on to something else now.

I know alot of people will probably ask me how I went about setting this up and rendering it so I will explain it. I have been wanting to draw a broken bottle for a long time. I was over at a buddy's house a few months back and noticed he had an empty Jack Daniels bottle on his bar. So I asked if I could have it and he agreed. When I got home I grabbed a cardboard box and placed a decent sized rock in the bottom of it. I then stood up and dropped the bottle onto the rock from about 7 feet. So I had all the shards contained in the box when it shattered. Then I took the box full of glass to my drawing table and started laying out the pieces how I wanted them and playing with the lighting. When I liked the composition I took some pictures of it and set the box aside.

For the most part I have been working from the photos while drawing this. However there were times when I wasn't happy with the highlights or something so I would change them in the drawing. I still had the still life scene set up in the cardboard box also throughout the drawing so if I didn't understand something going on, I would just refer to the real life set up.

The most tedious part of the entire drawing was probably the lettering on the label. It took a long time to negatively draw around all the letters. During the WIP I asked everyone what they thought about me putting some custom lettering on the label and everyone said I should go for it. So at the bottom of the label I put "Original Pencil Drawing" "Brian Duey". So it should be fairly hard for someone to try to rip this drawing from me.

Thank you for all the support throughout this drawing. I appreciate all the nice words from everyone and the helpful tips along the way. I hope you all like the drawing. Time to start something new

14"x20" Fabriano Hotpress
3B, 3b mechanical, 2h, b pencils
blending stumps in some places
Approximately 60 hours