The Lynx

Ida Andersen Lang 2024

Graphite on Drawing Paper

This drawing was created as one of my in depth Drawing Masterclasses on video in Drawing Magic Secrets

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How to draw a Lynx

Over the new year of 2023/24 I put myself to the enormous challenge of drawing the beautiful and enigmatic Lynx in graphite, a feline I find one of the most fascinating and magical.

The drawing of the Lynx was fully documented and narrated on video, as an in depth drawing Masterclass in my in depth drawing course, Drawing Magic Secrets (DMS). Each year in DMS, I record such a Masterclass and this year it was all about drawing fur in graphite.

Drawing fur in graphite is a time consuming and almost Zen like occupation, involving multiple layers of soft, blurry graphite smudges and literally hundreds of thousands (or so it feels) little, tiny thin hatches, giving the in-depth illusion of fur. It was almost like I was an apprentice of Lynx, as I obediently drew all that fur, cat hair by cat hair, and allowed the magic to unfold in front of my eyes.

I mainly drew this whole drawing, using average mechanical pencils 0,5 and with leads in different hardness, ranging from H to F, B and up to 2B. I also used a lot of stick erasers to “draw” the white and lighter areas of the fur.

This drawing took around 25 hours all in all to draw, but could have been much longer as well, if I had allowed time to fly even more. Once you are in sync with a motif like this, time seems to disappear and what feels like minutes becomes hours.

I really learned patience and letting go from sitting with the drawing of this enigmatic Lynx. And really rekindled my deep love and appreciation for slow, in-depth drawing.

I wonder what fur animal I should draw next time? If you have any suggestions, I would love to know in the comments.