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

04/08: Labrador x Rottweiler Finished

This photograph was taken last night in artificial light.


I put (what I hope are) the finishing touches to Oliver's portrait this morning and this photo was taken in daylight so the colours are more true. I've emailed this scan to Oliver's owner - so fingers crossed he will be happy with the end result.

31/07: WIP Chocolate Lab x Rottweiler

This is my latest commission which is pastel on Fisher 400 (sanded) paper.

When I received the ref photos I thought Oliver was a black lab - the main pose reference is quite a distant full body shot and he looks incredibly shiny and very black. The others show him swimming in water so his coat looks even darker. I was subsequently told he is in fact a chocolate lab x rotty and has a brown tinge to his coat.

As always, I've put some eye detail in first so Oliver becomes a 'personality' to me. I'm struggling a little with this one as it is very difficult to see detail around Oliver's jaw/neckline. I am working in a much looser style than usual as the photo is less detailed than I would like so am just putting down a base layer of pastel here.

I've started to define his nose and begun to map out some of the distinguishable shadows and highlights to help me build up the contours of his face. This is still a fairly light covering of pastel, just to form the base of my portrait.
I've decided to stop at this point as I'm not sure what is happening around Oliver's neckline. We have a busy weekend lined up so I probably won't get the chance to work on this again until Monday. Probably not a bad thing as I'm sure I'll pick up on more detail when I look at it with fresh eyes.