11/04: CATCH UP TIME

My lovely hubby bought me a new computer on Bank Holiday Monday and its taken the best part of five days to configure everything.   Why must upgrading be so difficult?   The latest programmes no longer support the old anti-virus or email packages and the printer won't talk to the new machine ..... what a nightmare!!

Anyway, I think everything is sorted at last and this machine is certainly much faster.  I'd had the old one for five years so I guess it was almost an antique in 'computer years'

Since returning from holiday I've been experimenting with different combinations of pencils/pastels and supports.  I have quite a collection of papers that I've tried and abandoned over the months/years and thought it was time to revisit them to see whether I like them any better now.

I've concentrated on drawing cats as I think I may still be in time to submit a picture or two to the SOFA Summer Exhibition if I can come up with something I'm happy with.  So its been almost 'a cat a day' for the last week!   I joined SOFA (Society of Feline Artists) last year but was too busy with commissions to draw any cats 'for me' and I hope to remedy that situation.   This year I will be accepting far fewer commissions (until the run up to Christmas) as we need to do a lot of work in the house and Garden this Summer.

This is an experiment using Prismacolour coloured pencils on Colourfix paper.   I really struggled with this and didn't like the combination at all - in fact I gave up before finishing the drawing and have just cropped the bottom of the picture out.  

This is drawn in pastel on Clairefontaine Pastelmat and I was much happier with the coverage - the only problem I have with Pastelmat is the limited colour range - this is 'Natural Sienna' which is a great colour in daylight but looks almost orange and a little 'garish' in artificial light.

I love this little chap ..... drawn in pastel on green Canson Mi-Teintes paper.   Canson do a fabulous range of colours but, having got used to the heavy duty sanded papers, I find this paper quite 'flimsy' at just 160gm2 and coverage is not as good (IMHO).  I will be 'test driving' some Murano paper later in the week and suspect I'll have similar views on that range.  But, I'm committed to re-trying the various brands I have gathering dust here ....... I'll probably be leaving the velour till last as I bought quite a lot a couple of years back when it was very 'fashionable' before I fell out of love with it. 

I know I've shown this next one before but I entered him into the UKCPS Spring Exhibition at Keswick.  Closing date for entries was yesterday but, because space at the Gallery is limited and the exhibition will probably be oversubscribed, it will be 'names out of the hat' to select pictures to be hung.  We won't know the results of the ballot for a while yet.   If I'm not one of the successful entrants in the UKCPS exhibition I will probably see whether it can be submitted for the SOFA exhibition.   Actually, this photo was taken before he was properly finished but as he is mounted and framed now it's not so easy to get a decent photo because of the glare from the glass.  He was drawn in coloured pencil on Fabriano Artistico HP paper and the title is 'Curiosity did what?'

and, finally in the cat series, this is one I started today and all I've done here is sketched the outline and fur direction very roughly in white pastel pencil.   As usual I've started with the eyes and I'm looking forward to progressing with this one tomorrow.   It will be drawn in soft pastel/pastel pencil on Sennelier La Carte on the 'dark blue grey' colour.   At 360g this is is real heavyweight paper so its no wonder I'm finding the Canson rather flimsy by comparison!  I will be posting some WIP pics for this one I think.

I have a couple of coloured pencil pictures on the go as well - really trying to get out of my 'comfort zone' and add scenery/backgrounds.   I'll post those on another occasion though.