Wednesday 24 August 2016

24/08: DOBERMAN - HOPEFULLY FINISHED

I've really struggled to finish this portrait.    I think I'd kind of taken against the ref/pose and so once I started working on the nose (which isn't terribly clear in the ref) I had lots of problems

I put pastel down, lifted it off with BluTack and just couldn't find the right balance - generally I love eyes and noses but ... I ended up really stressed and had to leave the portrait alone for a day.   I came back to it today which was 'make or break' as it needs to be done by the weekend and I really didn't fancy re-starting it.

I'm now reasonably happy with the likeness and have emailed these 2 pics to my client for comment/approval ... fingers crossed he'll like it.    In anticipation of a good result I've just tidied all my pastels away and dusted the tops in my room - how far can pastel dust travel I wonder?  Certainly over the entire desk, most of the floor area and I notice black fingerprints on doorhandles and light switches ...

In the ref photo, the dog's body is twisted around to his right side (our left as we look at this) and there was one hind leg, some body and tail showing.   I cropped these out to concentrate on the neck/chest area with no distractions.  

I used to do just head/shoulder portraits with no body but a wonderful artist ' Peter Barker' contacted me to ask why I 'truncated' my models ... he didn't understand/like 'floating heads' in portraits.   Since then I've always tried to bring the animal to the bottom/side of the portrait even if its just a faded out/suggestion of body so I don't have a isolated chopped off head ... hence the bit of chest and the orange patches at the top of the legs.

The portrait 'as is'



and with an old (single) mount loosely laid on top to show how the portrait will sit in the picture.     I always supply double mounts with my pastel portraits but didn't want to get one out of its cellophane till its needed.   This will fit a 20" x 16" frame


Wednesday 17 August 2016

17/08: DOBERMAN IN PASTELS

Just a quickie
This is a commission I agreed to take on (despite saying no commission work this year) ... and I'm using pastels on Fisher 400 sanded paper so already getting sore fingers .. I always have to blend with my fingers and usually end up with 'bloody' fingertips when using this paper.

Its a long time since I've used this combination so having an interesting time ...

Its A3 in size so approx 16" x 12"

End of first session



Another hour today


both times I've photographed the work in evening/dull light so the colours are a little 'off' - in reality the Fisher 400 sandpaper is a little more 'golden' in colour.

I'm still at the stage where I'm trying to get all the base colours in but trying very hard not to lose sight of the contours/lines in his face ....

I should be able to do another couple of hours work on this tomorrow so will certainly get all the base colour in and  start reworking the finer detail ...  there will be a very simple background added but haven't decided exactly what to do yet.


Wednesday 10 August 2016

10/08: FEELING TIRED!

I had one of those horrible nights when you just can't switch off the brain and get to sleep (until 6.30am when its almost time to get up) ... consequently this afternoon whilst watching the Dressage/Olympics I found myself drifting off/dozing at times ...

But I did do some more work on the spaniel drawing ... Ordinarily I'd tackle curls like this in pastel as I find it simpler, but I did fancy a challenge and its certainly been that!

Here's the latest update ... not sure if I will carry on/finish this tomorrow or pack the coloured pencils away and get the pastels out as I've got a Doberman dog to portray before the end of August.   I'm not taking on commissions at the moment ... but this one was a special request that I couldn't refuse.   I'm not overly happy with the ref photo but its good enough to work from so .. watch this space over the next few days

Here's the Spaniel - in coloured pencil on drafting film (with a black backing sheet) - size approx A3


Tuesday 9 August 2016

09/08: CURLY CHALLENGE ... A LITTLE MORE PROGRESS

Well, despite getting distracted by the Showjumping at the Olympics, I did get a little bit further advanced on the coloured pencil drawing ... its evolving all the time with constant tweaking of the hairs/curls and I have altered some of the hairs after seeing this photo which really shows which ones look odd (despite being that way on the ref. photo) ... this is where a little artistic licence comes into play.   I'm going to need to brighten the highlights in the eye (to our right) also, looking at it here ..


09/08: CURLY CHALLENGE!

I started work on this yesterday and will get a little more done this afternoon.   I fancied a change from humans and what could be more challenging than all these glorious curls.

I had the pleasure of meeting this lovely character, Spock, earlier this year.  He belongs to a fellow coloured pencil artist who lives near me and whose work I collected from the London Gallery and delivered to his house when the Exhibition finished in May.   I always have my camera with me and couldn't resist taking a few pictures ... I think the photos were taken the day before Spock had an appointment with the dog groomer to get his curls clipped short.  

I'm working in coloured pencils (Polychromos) on drafting film with a black backing sheet and I'm making a few adjustments to the ref. photo as I want to reveal Spock's left eye (on the right side as we look at him) which is totally hidden by a lock of white hair which had fallen across his face.

Slow going, but its quite therapeutic

The edge looks a bit 'raggedy' here but that's just where I've used masking tape to secure the black backing sheet to my drawing board to stop it sliding around.   With drafting film you really need to decide in advance whether you use white or coloured backing paper as the coloured pencils look very different dependent on the background.    The drafting film itself is a semi-opaque/light grey colour


Saturday 6 August 2016

06/08: 'PLAYING'

David was out for the day yesterday so I had a little play on a scrap piece of brown pastelmat paper.

It does seem as though the Polychromos pencils are 'leeching' into the soft surface but the advantage of working on Pastelmat is that the coloured pencil can be 'smudged' easily with a piece of kitchen towel or a cotton bud and so large areas can be covered quickly.  I've sprayed with fixative to get a little more 'tooth' but can't add any more layers.   Roll on the time when we can buy 'Touch up Texture' as promoted by Alyona Nickelsen - available in the USA but not yet in the UK (although Jackson's assure me they will stock it in the future).   Just a little more tooth would enable me to fix that mane which is such a mess right now.

  To 'complete' a cp drawing this quickly is quite unusual - approx 5 hours for 17" x 14" picture but another time I will use a more conventional HP watercolour paper I think.

Anyway, I've called a halt to this drawing but may use it as the base for a similar one done on a different paper in the future

Thursday 4 August 2016

04/08: INDIAN MAN FINISHED

My last 'arty' update was some time ago now so I thought I'd show the last progress pics and the 'finished' article (finished, I think, but I may still do a little tweaking and I definitely need to think of a title).

This is coloured pencil (Polychromos) on Derwent HP watercolour paper and the image size is approx 16" x 12"

This is where I left off back in June and then we went to our house in the Canaries for a few weeks ...


We were very busy sorting out the garden etc., when we got back so I didn't get much artwork done but I took the drawing along to a meeting of the local Art Society one evening and managed to get a bit more colour added to his tunic (in between chatting, as you do).  I was making the tunic up as I went along as in the ref. photos he is wearing a blue shirt and showing some chest hair

Once I'd put down a few layers of colour I thought it looked too boring so used my battery powered eraser to lift some spots of colour and added some polka dots


 Inspired by some of the portraits we'd seen at the recent Regional UK CPS exhibition, David suggested I should put in a simple background ...... my pet hate (backgrounds)  but I thought I'd have a go and came up with this


BUT 'his lordship' then said ... 'I didn't mean anything as ornate as that - just a suggestion would do'

.... so I got the trusty BluTack out and spent twice as long lifting the colour as it took to apply

In reality the pictures aren't as grey as this - the background paper is white but I think I've had quite enough of this drawing for today so I'll call it (probably) finished and try to improve the colour/photos on a brighter day.





Wednesday 3 August 2016

You can't help but smile at the antics of this little one .... really full of the joys of Spring.

Sorry for the fuzzy bits, it was hard to keep him/her in focus  but I think you can see enough hopefully?


Tuesday 2 August 2016

02/08: NEW FOREST PONIES, DONKEYS, DEER

Yet again, I find myself apologising for the gaps between Blog posts.   Despite my antipathy to FB and refusal to get my own FB page I'm afraid I tagged onto hubby's account a while back and now find myself drawn in and spending too much time on that site ... although I don't have a dedicated page/art site of my own.

One of the main attractions of FB is that I don't have to downsize photos before posting them which saves a lot of time - my camera takes very large pictures! 

But I will make the effort to post more here as I do like Blogger better than FB and it doesn't become as 'b*tchy' as the so-called Social Media sites.

David and I have just returned from a lovely break in Hampshire where we stewarded for 2 days at the UKCPS Regional Exhibition which ran for nearly a month.   It was a fabulous venue with the Gallery being in the reception area for the Sir Harold Hillier gardens and next to the popular cafe/restaurant - so footfall was very good. 

We took the opportunity to do a bit of sightseeing around the local New Forest area - my last visit there was about 50 years ago!   The New Forest is approx 145 sq miles of Forest and heathland and is very beautiful.

The ponies are semi-feral and you can read more about them here New Forest Pony information
and we also saw plenty of deer and donkeys

Here's a selection of the (FAR TOO MANY) photos I took there


































Now, if I can't find any good reference material amongst the hundreds of photos I took I need shooting!    

I also took some short videos but not sure how to add those to Blogger so will have to investigate as there was one foal who was absolutely full of the joys and made me giggle!