My project for course: Animal Illustration with Charcoal and Ink

I love colors!!! But I was tempted to take one more course with Laura.. so I discovered a wonderful new black&white world.
A few wordsabout the project:
After I was disappointed during the exercises by drawing an animal that didn't have a strong contrast between black and white, I looked for a more suitable animal and fell in love with the ostrich...
Because I didn't make good-enough prints, but I did like the simple shape, I made a stencil and painted over it with ink and black acrylic.
I imagined a crazy combination between the printed shapes and the charcoal drawing, so I made a few attempts. To the final drawing I added more interest with pink watercolor.
When I saw that the white feathers were lifeless I added salt on the charcoal powder.
While working, I received a request from my mother to draw her old sick beloved dog, so I added it as well (she has a character of an ostrich...)
The work process was full of thoughts, ideas, attempts, courage, a critical eye, failures and lessons learned.

The main things I take with me from the course are to do comprehensive preparatory work that also includes some drawings that will not be successful, but will be used for learning and discovery.

Thank you Laura for another course that challenged and developed me!