BLACK HAT ... FINISHED

I'm fed up with this drawing now so calling it FINISHED and just waiting for David to put it in the frame so I can't fiddle with it any more.      I think I mentioned previously that I'm using a secondhand frame which is quite unusual in design and this was drawn specifically to fit it.    He has dismantled the frame/mount and its in pieces on my dining room table at the moment awaiting attention.

Pure coloured pencil on Dark Grey Clairefontaine Pastelmat - size is approx 15" x 20" and the overall framed size is approx 25" x 27"

The weather is so gloomy that I wasn't able to get a good photo and have manipulated the colours in this image slightly to get to what I think is a fairly accurate representation.    Amazing how difficult it can be to photograph black and/or white images isn't it?

and I finally found the button to resize some of the photos on the right side of my Blog Home page .... so simple when you know how

24/07: ONE SILLY MISTAKE - 3 HOURS EXTRA WORK

Apologies for the long absence.   We've been really busy sorting out Mum-in-Law's flat, getting everything cleared ready for the decorators to give it a quick make-over ready for sale.   All the smaller items have been loaded into our car and taken to charity shops, dog rescue home (blankets/towels/bedlinen etc) then the larger furniture items were either collected by Red Cross/Scope charities or by house-clearance guys to take to the tip.   

Each trip takes a whole day by the time we drive there, do the necessary work, and drive back - especially with the Kent motorways being gridlocked with Operation Stack in force.     Operation Stack is the name given to the closure of one of our main motorways which is used as a parking lot for all the lorries which can't get across to France because of industrial action and/or trouble with illegal immigrants at Calais Port.   No fun trying to commute in Kent at the moment.

Anyway, I finally got time to work on the girl in the black hat last week.    In a moment of stupidity I decided to give her a quick spray of fixative so I could add more coloured pencil layers .......... and her face turned green!   The fixative reacted with some of the pigment and the black paper and she looked like the TV witch Grotbags

So a 2 second fixative spray led to 3 hours of remedial work until finally I got her back to almost the position she was in beforehand.      I'd always advise people to test spray fixative on different colour pencil/paper combinations before applying to original works but didn't heed my own advice this time.    I think I got away with it but am letting the colours settle down for a couple of days as I've noticed before that coloured pencils do seem to 'soak' into the soft surface of pastelmat a little.    One more session should see this one finished (if I haven't overworked it) ... time will tell