"Musk ox"

The musk ox (Ovibos moschatus) is an arctic bovid, survivor of the great glaciations. Its woolly undercoat — the qiviut — is one of the most insulating fibres known, and its long coat reaching to the ground allows it to survive the harshest Canadian and Greenlandic winters. When threatened by predators, the herd forms a defensive circle with horns turned outward.

The strict frontal view was chosen for a precise reason: it is the only angle that conveys the full extent of the musk ox's silhouette — an almost perfectly round mass of fur, from which only the head and, barely, the hooves emerge. The graphite drawing works the long lines of hair in successive layers to render at once the volume and the fluidity of this extraordinary coat.