18/10: SNOWFLAKE

Its been a few days since I posted .. I did set out to start on the graphite 3 child portrait on Wednesday but my neighbours were having a beautiful (huge) Willow tree removed from their back garden - I'm sure there is a good reason but its sad to see it go. The Tree Surgeons parked their their industrial 'mulching machine' on the neighbour's drive (adjacent to my work room) and started it working at 9.15am and didn't finish till 5.30pm - despite double glazing the noise was horrendous and I was ready to commit murder by the end of the day. Not ideal drawing conditions! However I did make a start and i've done a lot of work on the portrait since Wednesday. I think it will be more or less finished tomorrow.

I always have difficulty in photographing graphite drawings - the white paper always turns out blue/grey and it takes lots of adjustments to get it somewhere near the true colours. I hope to get a decent photo tomorrow in daylight so I can send a scan to the client for critique/approval and to post here.


The weather was glorious today so David and I went for a long walk along the beach path towards Herne Bay. I took the camera and ended up with lots more seagull photos - they do tend to pose beautifully on the wooden groynes (breakwaters) which run down the beach into the sea - but I do have rather a lot of these now.

The beach walk is very popular with dog walkers and we passed lots of beautiful animals but I just fell in love with this little lady. She is 15 weeks old - a German Shepherd and out on one of her very first walks. As she bounced along towards me I just couldn't resist those gorgeous pink ears. Her name is Snowflake and I've saved the best photos for me as I plan to work on her portrait as soon as I get the chance ... but isn't she soooo cute!

11/10: SPANIEL - HOPEFULLY FINISHED!

This is the best photograph I could get of the (hopefully) finished portrait tonight . The portrait is pastel on Fisher 400 paper which is a light sand colour - this looks a little grey.




I've posted some of the Work In Progress pictures below with comments:


I started work on this handsome Spaniel yesterday. I've made a huge effort to finish the portrait today - the new daylight lamp has been an absolute godsend as the gloomy weather means my usually sunny workroom loses the light at about 4pm. I can now work on for an extra hour or so knowing the lighting isn't going to mean I use colours I'll regret in the morning!! Unfortunately it doesn't help when photographing the pictures - the colour still gets distorted ... but my scanner only takes A4 sized paper so is not much good for most of my portraits which tend to be larger. I probably won't send this to my client till Tuesday when I hope to get a better photo for her to approve/critique.

I'm ahead of schedule on my pre-Christmas orders which is great. I'd anticipated starting the first graphite children portrait on 20 October so I do have time to slot in one of the horse pastels (but I won't - I'm determined to save them till after the children)!!

We have a day trip to France scheduled tomorrow to stock up on essential supplies :o). One of the joys of living on the Kent coast is that its so easy to get the Ferry (or Eurotunnel) to France whenever special offers are available. So probably no blog posting tomorrow but I'll be back at the drawing board on Tuesday!

This is the basic sketch and I've started on the eyes first - I don't work 'by the book' I'm afraid ... I like to get a feel for the character and drawing in the eyes works



Work started on those complicated curls!



This Spaniel has the most amazing colouring - really beautiful and a challenge to draw!



Almost finished - this is slightly too bright, but the background paper colour is probably the closest to 'true life'

09/10: MEG (SALUKI) FINISHED

I've heard back from the client that she loves the portrait of Meg, so no changes needed. For personal reasons Meg is very important to her, but what I loved to hear was that despite her glamourous appearance, Meg is a bit of a 'tomboy' and loves rolling in the mud etc - she's a 'proper dog'

10/08: Dogs Trust Fun Day - Chestfield

Our local Dogs Trust Centre held their annual Fun Day yesterday - they were soooo lucky with the weather.

There was a fantastic turnout and the dogs were all having a wonderful time making new friends and joining in lots of the activities. It is always fun watching dogs being introduced to the joys of agility training(actually its more fun watching the owners trying to show them what to do - I think we saw more humans jumping fences than dogs!!

These are a few of the dogs I met and will hopefully have the pleasure of drawing in the future (not necessarily from these photos) :

This is Zeus, a Rottweiler x German Shepherd


Lupo & Red (brothers) - Mum was Collie x Whippet and Dad was Greyhound x Old English Sheepdog!

Mum and daughters - 3 beautiful whippets





Kali. Black & tan Cavalier King Charles Spaniel