07/10: SPARKY FINISHED (I HOPE)

I toned down some of the white hairs round Sparky's muzzle and finished his body. Ordinarily I wouldn't have included this much body in a portrait but I wanted to show Sparky coming right out of the mount in the bottom right corner. I thought it would work better than my usual 'head/neck/shoulders' isolated portrait. I'm still waiting for feedback from the client before finally 'fixing' the pastel but in the meantime I've just started on the next commission - a white Saluki. It took me an hour to decide which paper I was going to use for this one. I'd love to work on Fisher 400 but the colour just won't work without painting in a background - which I'm reluctant to do. So, believe it or not, I've opted for Pastelmat again!! I know this portrait is going to be a real challenge - all that beautiful flowing silky hair ....

05/10: SPARKY. JRT IN PASTEL

En route to Birmingham on Friday I had a phone call to say the scanned photo of Bobby (poodle) had been seen by my client's Mum-in-law and she burst into tears, said it was a perfect likeness and no changes needed!! That was unexpected but very welcome ...

So I started work on Sparky yesterday afternoon. Sparky's owner is sadly retiring from the police force on health grounds and this little dog helps him cope with his illness. It has been commissioned by his brother and sister-in-law.

I'm working in pastel on Clairefontaine pastelmat and it has taken a while to get used to this combination as I haven't worked on Pastelmat for some time. The pastels don't blend as well on pastelmat as they do on Fisher 400 sanded paper but I particularly wanted to use this colour background as I believe its quite a close match to the rug Sparky is sitting on in the ref photo.

I didn't get much done yesterday afternoon because the weather was gloomy and I lost the light in my workroom very early. I do have a daylight lamp on my working desk but I struggle with black and dark colours in poor light (my eyes ain't what they used to be)!!




I was so intent on trying to blend the blues/blacks today I forgot to take an interim Work in Progress photo .. never mind, its beginning to take shape now



Again, I've been beaten by the light, but its time to prepare dinner anyway and relax a little. I've started working on Sparky's neck/chest hair and that went very quickly. Having taken a step back and had a really good look at it, I can see I need to adjust the white markings around Sparky's nose/muzzle - nothing major, I obviously got a little carried away with the white pastel! The colour isn't quite accurate because I photographed this stage in artificial light