The Flower Girl

I've been wanting to paint figures for quite a while as it's something I enjoy as much as the wildlife, even though they don't seem to sell as quickly. Now that I've caught up with myself regarding commissions and other commitments, I've managed to complete a couple so far. There may be another in the pipeline too, a new version of my 'Streets Of London' painting which one of my customers has asked about.

Meanwhile here is my most recent painting, completed today. It's quite large at 21 x 14 inches. I used watercolour and enhanced with pastel pencils to finish.

I have a few tubes of Daniel Smith watercolours which were given to me as a gift by my good friend Robyn in Australia. I've used them all in this painting along with my usual SAA paints. The DS are superb although I haven't quite gotten used to them yet, I'd like to buy some more if/when I can afford them (they're quite expensive but you get what you pay for I guess)

So my washes on the girls arms didn't come out as smooth as I would have liked unfortunately. Therefore I enhanced with pastels to finish them off. I think it's worked out OK.

Fair Weather Friends

I haven't made many posts of late as I've been quite busy, new work has been sporadic at best. In particular I haven't had my watercolour paints out for what seems ages as my last few offerings were all pastel apart from a couple of pencil commissions. So, having caught up with myself at last it was with a slightly nervous attitude I got out my paints and a frighteningly bright, clean sheet of Arches to begin a new painting. Below is my progress after the first session. I used a photograph from the Paint My Photo website as reference.

A little while ago I was sent a gift from a friend of a few tubes of Daniel Smith watercolours to try out and I must say they are marvellous. I mostly use the SAA own brand paints and have always found them to be satisfactory, plenty of strong pigment and I suppose I've become used to how they react over the years. Although the range of colours is slightly limited, I have supplemented my collection with a few W&N tubes to pad it out a bit but the new DS tubes were a very welcome addition. The golden browns in the background were painted with the DS paints, giving a lovely glow with just the right amount of granulation for a nice texture. The photograph above is a bit rubbish but below is my scan of the completed painting after the second session (about 8 hours in all).

Not too bad considering my long lay off. I find it's so easy to lose the touch without constant practice.

Once completed I uploaded this image to my Facebook page for a bit of feedback and was rather pleased to receive a message from one of my 'friends' asking me to reserve this painting for them. He also enquired about one which has sold, so I may be painting a new version of 'The Streets Of London' for him sometime soon. That's cheered me up a bit after my experience with those damned Chinese buggers from my previous post.

Scum Of The Earth

I've been having a bit of a run of bad luck lately, the most depressing instance at the hands of those Chinese scum of the earth who are doing their level best to ruin the internet experience (that is when they are not busy encouraging the murder of the world's most endangered wildlife to satisfy their ridiculous appetite for 'traditional' medicines, or torturing and murdering each other back in China)

Living out in the wilds of Suffolk, miles from any decent shops, I do most of my buying online. I'm usually pretty good at identifying what is a scam but managed to get myself conned out of £90 recently.

It was a few Sundays ago, I was looking to buy a new raincoat to help me cope with the recent drought and had opted for a Barbour. After identifying the particular model I wanted I did a search on it to find the best price. Recovering from a particularly nasty migraine and with the church bells clashing and banging in the background probably wasn't the best time to go surfing the net. Murphy wasn't helping by barking madly at all of the nutters passing my front door on their way to the church. To make things worse the phone was constantly ringing with urgent messages about compensation claims, solar panels etc. etc. I bloody hate Sundays! So, due to a lack of concentration, stupidity, call it what you will, I ended up on a fake Barbour website which was selling the afore chosen coat at a discounted price and before I knew it I was checking out using their Glbpay system and my Visa. Yes, I know. That should have raised an alarm but I wasn't thinking straight.

It wasn't until a couple of days later when I saw on my bank statement that the payment had gone out to Shanghai, that I realised what I'd done. Bugger! So now I'm thinking that at best I'm going to receive a fake Barbour....at worst....sod all.

I waited until after the three to five days stated for delivery and then fired off an email asking where my coat had got to. Surprise, surprise, no reply. After another week, feeling very angry and frustrated I sent another one with slightly stronger wording...... Nowt. I phoned my bank and explained what had happened, they advised waiting a bit longer and if nothing came then they would try to recover my money.

Then about a week later (4 weeks in all) I was shocked to find that a package had arrived from China. My relief was short lived though as when I opened it inside was the cheapest, most horrible piece of shit jacket imaginable, about one level up from a plastic mac. What's more, the bugger didn't even fit! Well, I completely lost my temper then. I sent another email calling them all the names under the sun and a few things besides (can't repeat it here, far too disgusting even for me) but it helped to get it off my chest. So I was shocked when the next day surprisingly I got an email back apologising for the mix up and asking me to return the jacket to them (in China) after which I would get a refund. Yeah right.

So, what to do. Should I return it knowing I have about as much chance of a refund as I have of winning the lottery, or just write it off to experience. I've made a report to the police via Actionfraud online which hopefully will help get their website shut down.  I'll phone my bank again and ask for advice but I don't need all this crap. I bloody hate the Chinese with a vengeance I do. Sorry if that is racist but I can't help it.

Meanwhile, I've bought myself a GENUINE Barbour now. Had to pay full price but with this one I got a free gift. A Barbour coat for Leon! Yes, next winter we will be walking on the beach in co-ordinated Barbour splendour. Can't wait.

Aldeburgh Craft Fair May 2012

I took part in my first craft fair of the season over the weekend at the Jubilee Hall in Aldeburgh. It was good to catch up with several regular fellow 'crafters' who I only ever see at the fairs, as well as meet some new ones. This year this particular craft fair was organised by different people and I wasn't sure how well it might go.

So the weekend began with a very early start on Saturday morning. I had to walk the dogs, get my breakfast and get over to Aldeburgh and set up, the doors opened at 07:30. Parking up I walked past the homeless guy again. "Got any loose change?" he asked..... I jiggled my pocket before replying "No, it's all nice and secure thanks". Well, I wasn't going to let him get the better of me after the sandwich incident in my previous blog.

I was only putting out a small display so setting up didn't take too long. It turned out that they had put me next to the lovely Deirdre who was selling her organic, hand made soaps and lotions. We got on well but I just knew I was going to arrive home in the evenings smelling like a unicorn running through fresh wild flowers.....well that's life I suppose.

We had a good procession of people through all day Saturday. I sold a framed original painting almost straight away which was very encouraging. I don't usually expect to sell the originals at craft fairs. It was my coloured pencil work of a squirrel monkey 'Speak No Evil'.
I also sold several prints and cards so all in all not a bad day.




Sunday morning was even busier in terms of footfall and several more prints and cards went. My good friend Tom had a display of his wood carvings across the hall from me. I (and a good many others) was impressed with some of his new pieces, in particular this chair carved from spalted sycamore. More of a sculpture than a piece of furniture it was the star of the show. A talented man that Tom. I did suggest that if he made a similar one with a large hole in the seat and a bucket underneath, he might get a sale from one of the Aldeburgh 'old money' residents. Always helpful I am.....



Monday was quieter.... in fact so boring I decided to paint Toms nails for something to do....in the afternoon it got even worse so I painted his hammer too. (only kidding....I'm not actually allowed near the hammer)

I did manage to find a book to read. Rubbish it was. I mean, they write 'Dictionary' on the cover but don't define it until they reach the 'D's.....took me three chapters to work out what was bloody going on!

Further entertainment was had by collaring anyone who came in that I vaguely knew and discreetly asking them to go browse the soap table and then thoughtfully ask if she did Swarfega.....such fun.

There are always one or two people from other worlds who come in. One lady spent quite a bit of time looking at a print of my pencil work of Thorpeness windmill and 'House In The Clouds'.

 Sensing the whiff of a potential sale I tried to engage her in conversation.
"You do know the sails have been taken orf it now don't you" she said rather haughtily.
Bloody hell! what did she want me to do, rub 'em out? Actually she did buy a print so I shouldn't grumble.

So a successful weekend financially, even if a bit boring at times. I'm now looking forward to the next one in Southwold in three or four weeks time. Meanwhile I have a rather difficult commission to start this week. I'm dreading it but hopefully, once I get started it will come together.

Wild Cat

.....and finally, the finished painting. The Asian Leopard Cat.

16 x 12 inches ~ pastel pencil and soft pastels on Pastelmat.

A little information I've been reading. The Asian Leopard Cat is about the same size as our familiar domestic cat, and indeed is often caught and mated with them to produce the popular Bengal cat. Only sold on after the 3rd generation though as it would be too dangerous to keep the first two generations as pets.

The Leopard Cat is distributed widely throughout Asia but is becoming ever more rarely seen as, surprise!! the Chinese have decided to make 'medicine's from it's body parts to sell on their street markets. Also the Japanese have a huge market for the pelts (200,000 skins were imported into Japan in a single year not too long ago) It makes me seethe reading this sort of thing. Ignorant murderous cretins is about as polite as I can be about these people.

So I came across a wonderful reference photograph on the Wetcanvas website to use and decided to make it my next progression in teaching myself pastel painting.

Asian Leopard Cat pastel painting WIP part 2

After getting back from my exhibition in Aldeburgh, an enforced break from my studio, I was glad to get back on to this painting. The weather has been so terrible, making it difficult to get out so I've made good progress with this pastel painting and one more good session should finish it I think.

 Above you can see I got the majority of the work completed on the cat himself, I will be going back in at the end to refine and add more detail, but I got to the point of wanting to put in the tree logs and branches to give me more idea of how it's going to end up and to where shadows will be needed.

Here you can see where I got to at the end of today. I'm quite pleased with how the branches have turned out. I didn't want them to dominate the scene too much but at the same time, as they are in the foreground they need to be realistic and detailed.

I'll be finishing them off next, then altering the far background a bit as I'm not too keen on it as it is at the moment, then a final application of shadows and a bit more detailing on the fur should do it.

Cinema Gallery April 2012

I'm not sure what the current price of guano is but, judging by the state of my van I may become very rich soon. It's been parked in Aldeburgh every day this week you see,  right by the beach.

I'm sure the buggers were laughing at me as I tramped from the van through the drought rain to the Cinema Gallery  each morning for my exhibition.

I know some artists who spend a lot of time and effort priming and texturising their canvasses before beginning their paintings. Try leaving them on Aldeburgh beach for half an hour ..... job done! My old van looks like a giant novelty wedding cake now.

It's been quite a struggle to make a living through the past winter, what with the recession etc. sales have been quite slow so I was looking forward to getting started with this seasons exhibitions and fairs, maybe catch up a bit with my bills hopefully.

Setting up the exhibition on Thursday had gone well. It's my 4th time in the Cinema Gallery so I knew roughly what to take and how I would lay it out.

Confidence was quite low on Friday morning, even though I'd done all I could think of regarding publicity etc. I'd even had a haircut! I'd like to be an optimist but I just know I'd be shit at it.

The dogs had to be walked before I went in and of course I got soaked to the skin. However, a hot shower (only Co-Op shampoo....because I'm worthless) perked me up and off I went.

Parking up by the White Lion hotel (free parking all day...Woohoo!) I put my large poster inside the windscreen of the van for a bit of extra advertising and set off. On my way past the fishing huts I spotted a homeless man huddled against the sea wall. I stopped to share a sandwich with him..... "Bugger off and get yer own!" he roared at me...... miserable old git.

Anyway, here are a few snaps although I did constantly change things around as things sold.

It's a nice space this gallery, light and airy and plenty of room. I had about 45 original pictures altogether, as well as loads of prints and cards. The only downside is that it's on the first floor so you don't get people just falling in off the street, they have to make the effort to come up the stairs therefore footfall is quite light. However those that do make their way in are mostly people who are interested and tend to stay quite a while, giving me a chance to get a conversation going. In fact the very first person to come in bought a large print so, a good start.

Those canvasses you can see in the first photo are a new thing for me and I was quite pleased with them. I got them from a company called YouFrame who are always offering discounts so I bought them over the past few months as and when I had a voucher, meaning the outlay wasn't too high. They proved to be quite popular and I sold three of the six I had brought along.

Saturday came and as usual I made my way down to Sizewell beach at about 7 o'clock with the dogs, only to find the place had been completely taken over by the nuclear power protesters. They come every year, dozens of tents and vans strewn all over the sand dunes and beach in the shadow of the power station. Some were just waking up and crawling out of their bivouacs to start the day. One particularly heavily bearded and grizzled, filthy looking individual gave me a toothless smile (man! she was ugly) and said good morning. I made the mistake of returning a cheerful greeting but then got caught up in a lengthy conversation it was difficult to escape from. Eyes were glazing over as she lectured me on the effects minute levels of radiation might be having on the fish and seagulls over a prolonged period.

I disagreed with her views entirely and made the mistake of telling her so. I've been eating fish and watching the wildlife on this coastline for years and never noticed any problems. On the contrary I'm quite pleased with the way that the power people have conserved the area and made it one of the best spots for bird watching and the like, along this coast. Just then there was a panic stricken shout from one of the little tents. I looked and could see a large ginger backside sticking out from under the front of it. From the vigorously wagging tail I realised Murphy must have made a new friend..... heh heh! good old Murph, never lets me down. I took that as my cue to move on and proceeded with my day.



During the week quite a few of my Facebook friends dropped in to see me at the gallery. Some, like Stephen and Mita Higton I'd met before whereas others like Laina West, Lois and Garry Prismall, Annie Mclean and Caroline Keen I met in person for the first time which was really great. Along with plenty of my local friends and followers it helped to stop me climbing the walls with boredom. Thanks again everyone for the support and for making the effort. 

There are always a few twats to contend with though. People with extremely loud clothes and voices to match, barging in and acting like they own the place. "Oooh! a STAAAAG.... reminds me of me last trip to the Highlands..." boomed a particularly obnoxious cretin in a tweed coat and bright yellow trousers. Yeah right..... I had to fight the urge to push him down the stairs on his way out. I should have done really. It would be nice to get my money's worth out of the third party liability insurance.

Several others, seeing all of my African wildlife art, bored me to death with their stories of regular Safari in Africa, looking at me pitifully as I explained that I've never been able to afford to venture further than Banham Zoo for my reference material. Perhaps if they got their wallets out a bit more that might change.

Another man who was actually wearing a bow tie and blazer and the most obvious toupee I've ever seen (what planet are these people from) came marching in completely ignoring me and my exhibition, collared a couple who were quietly browsing my prints and proceeded to discuss at the top of his voice, the lecture he was about to give in the theatre below. I wonder how he would have felt if I'd marched into his lecture while he was in  full flow and started shouting about my art exhibition to his audience....... give me strength. Aldeburgh does seem to be full of them, but I still love it here. Keeps me entertained.

On the whole, the vast majority of people I met were really lovely and it was a pleasure to spend time chatting to them. I managed to make sales every day, mostly prints but a few originals too so the week was a success financially, although not enough to sponsor a trip to Africa..... yet.

Asian Leopard Cat pastel painting WIP

Firstly, a little information I've been reading. The Asian Leopard Cat is about the same size as our familiar domestic cat, and indeed is often caught and mated with them to produce the popular Bengal cat. Only sold on after the 3rd generation though as it would be too dangerous to keep the first two generations as pets.

The Leopard Cat is distributed widely throughout Asia but is becoming ever more rarely seen as, surprise!! the Chinese have decided to make 'medicine's from it's body parts to sell on their street markets. Also the Japanese have a huge market for the pelts (200,000 skins were imported into Japan in a single year not too long ago) It makes me seethe reading this sort of thing. Ignorant murderous cretins is about as polite as I can be about these people.

So I came across a wonderful reference photograph on the Wetcanvas website to use and decided to make it my next progression in teaching myself pastel painting.

Again for this I am using my trusty set of Faber Castell pastel pencils, my set of Ashby soft pastels and a piece of pale grey Pastelmat, about 16 x 12 inches.

 Above is my entire progress of day one, about 6 hours work. My reference photo, taken in a zoo, has a pale blue sky for background with a few small saplings. I've decided to go for a bit more drama and will make a bit of a feature of the tree trunk the cat is standing on.

Below you can see the two photographs taken after day two. Slow progress but the detail is appearing quite nicely as I go. I'm really enjoying pastel work. I still have a few difficulties achieving the effects I want but I'm learning every day.....if it was easy everyone would be doing it eh?

 I will get a little more done in the morning hopefully, but then I have to pack up my van and get ready to set up my exhibition in Aldeburgh early Thursday morning. I'll be in attendance all week so won't be getting back to this painting until after the exhibition finishes on the 26th April.

I'm tempted to take it in with me as a bit of a demo but, well I'm hopeless if distracted and I don't want to spoil it. Also I'm not sure the pastel dust/mess would go down too well on the gallery's posh carpeting. We'll see...perhaps I'll leave it on an easel and pretend to work on it......

I'll update my blog once I have some more progress to show and hopefully report on a successful exhibition. I doubt the latter though, last year at this venue at about this time of year was a bit of a dead loss and, as this year has been particularly quiet, I'm not expecting too much. Wish me luck....

Wolf Pastel Painting WIP ~ In Nature's Wake

For this painting I used another reference photograph from the Paint My Photo website, this time by Angeline Rijkeboer which can be seen here.

 I'm painting on a 'Maize' coloured sheet of Pastelmat paper and as you can see above I didn't start photographing it until quite a bit had been completed. To be honest, I didn't think I'd be finishing this one and it so very nearly went in the bin several times before I got to this stage. A very steep learning curve for me but I learned an enormous amount and so decided to continue to the end regardless, and treat it as a good excercise.

 The wolf himself was created using my Pitt pastel pencils and the background using my set of soft pastels. One of the problems I was having was dragging the background pigment into the fur at the edges. Finally I realised that by lightly spraying with fixative, the background wasn't affected too much and then I was able to add another layer of 'fur' over the top. I also wanted a little of the reflected light in the white fur on the right. This took several attempts before I got the effect subtle enough.

 After several sessions of layering like this I began to get the hang of it. The green foliage went on over the top of the dark background really easilly. At this point I started to feel reasonably confident that I'd have a half decent painting at the end of this so started to take a bit more care.

 The foreground blocking in was quick to do before making final adjustments to my wolf and then going over with a final detail layer to finish.

Above is the finished painting. During this one, my old computer decided to pack up for the final time and I've been busy sorting out a new one, then found out that the new one with Windows 7 doesn't support my old scanners. So these photographs are a bit low res. I'll add a decent scan to my web pages once my new scanner arrives.

Mischievous Soul

Here is what I've been working on over the last 2 or 3 days, persevering with my efforts on the Pastelmat. I'm gradually working larger, although this one is still only 12  x 9 inches. I used a reference photograph of this baby baboon by Billy Dodson, from Savannah Images for this one, although I have changed it around to suit me. I've also used 'Maize' coloured pastelmat.

My larger efforts have ended up in the bin so I'm taking it slowly as I teach myself and before I commit again to a full sized painting. I struggle a bit with the backgrounds where I use my soft pastels, but this one seemed to work OK. (my scan is not the best, in reality the blending is more refined but it's the best I can get)

I'm enjoying these though, and learning more with each painting.

Treasure from Down Under

Well what can I say! Over the years I have made many friends via the internet, most of whom I'm never likely to meet. One such friend, a lovely lady from Australia, is someone I'm often in touch with as we share the same (wicked) sense of humour. Well, during one of our many on-line conversations some time ago I happened to mention Jenny's health problems and how it often gets her down.

Well, today a package arrived and I'm just stunned. One of Robyn's talents is jewelry making and she has spent many, many hours designing and making this breathtakingly beautiful necklace and sent it to cheer Jenny up a bit.

Apart from it being the most generous and kind gesture, it is absolutely gorgeous. Jenny's jaw dropped when she saw it and she absolutely loves it.


Once I'd eventually prized it from her clutches I had a good look at it and I can't believe how skilfully it has been made. I see a lot of hand made jewelry at the many craft fairs I take part in but nothing I have seen is in this league. Each tiny bead has been hand threaded one at a time and must have taken hours and hours of concentration to create. The part where it joins is unbelievably intricate.

 I've tried to photograph it as best I can but my pictures don't really do it justice.

What a treasure to receive. I reckon it'll do really well on Ebay!

(Only kidding, honest Robyn!)

On top of that she also popped in several tubes of Daniel Smith watercolours for me to try out. It's like Christmas here, but without the bloody bells!

We can't thank you enough Robyn.

Forthcoming Exhibition in Aldeburgh

Just a bit of a reminder that I'll be having my first exhibition of the season in Aldeburgh soon, details as above. Anyone in the area at the time please do drop in and say hello. For those further afield, Aldeburgh is a great place for a day trip out. 

The first one to bring me an ice cream gets a free greetings card!

Daydreamer

Continuing my exploration of the Pastelmat paper, this little portrait (10 x 7 inches) has been created with coloured pencils and pastel pencils.

I began with the eyes using my Prismacolor pencils which went well but as I worked my way out on the rest of the face I had more difficulty. The problem is that the surface of the paper doesn't lend itself to blending with the coloured pencils until you have reached it's full capacity in terms of how many layers it will hold. This was fine with the eyes as I built up several layers but where I wanted to leave some of the paper colour (pale grey) showing through on the face and was therefore working with much lighter strokes, I was left with a very speckled and patchy effect. It took a lot of work to get it looking how I wanted. I wish I'd just used pastel for the whole painting really, but the object was to learn all about the properties of the paper so lesson learned.

The hairy part of the old lady was all done with pastel pencils. Over all I think it's a pretty pleasing result but I reckon I'll stick to pure pastel on this Pastelmat in future.

Time Travelling in Leiston

Some of my online friends may not know, but I've developed the ability to time travel! At the moment I can only go forwards .....quite slowly..... but it's a start, although stepping in to the local Post Office is like being transported back to the 1950's.  Anyway, imagine my surprise this morning when I got up and realised I'd shot forward a whole hour........ without even trying! Amazing.

I went straight out, excited to see what changes might have occurred this far into the future. The first thing I noticed was how tired everyone looked....as if they'd all had a late night and been woken up too early. Shame. But at least, in my surge forward into the future, I'd managed to skip the usual Sunday morning cacophony of the church bells.....or so I'd thought. Bang! Crash! BANG! ...the bastards started an hour later today. I just can't win!

 

To escape the noise I made my way slowly to the local cafe for a bacon sandwich. There are some right clowns in Leiston you know. I ordered my sandwich and the girl behind the counter asked if I'd like it toasted. "Yes please" I replied and immediately everyone in the cafe stood up, held up their mugs of tea and shouted "Here's to Peter's bacon sandwich" and then all sat down again. Cuh! everyone's a comedian nowadays.

Hunger pangs sated, (time travel doesn't appear to halt the metabolism) I drove to the garage where thankfully the deisel price was still only £1.45p a litre, I'd been fearful of a bit of a hike there. I put my usual £35 worth in and as usual the fuel guage needle hardly moved....depressing. It got me thinking back to the days when £1.50 would keep my car going for a week....hmmm perhaps I ought to concentrate on going back in time instead of forward... if I work hard at it I may make some headway perhaps by erm.... the end of October? 

Mind you, I wouldn't want to have to go through again some of the times I've had. The most difficult period of my life was when I was a bus driver in Humberside..... I went to Hull and back.

Papillon on Pastelmat. A quick review.

As mentioned in previous posts I've decided to get back into pastel paintings and to that end, after a little research, decided to try out this Pastelmat paper. It arrived on Saturday morning and so I straight away began a small painting to try it out.

I should point out here that I am no expert regarding pastels, but not a complete novice. I've produced  a few fairly nice pieces before but only ever tried out a few different surfaces, mostly struggling along with Fabriano papers or Colorfix. The colorfix was good but had a few disadvantages because of it's rough surface, making it quite tricky to achieve sharply defined edges.

I didn't want to use a full sheet of Pastelmat for my first experience of this paper, after all at just under £5 a sheet (50 x 70cm) it's not cheap. So I cut a small piece about 8 x 9 inches to use for my first go. The picture I chose for reference is yet another from the Paint My Photo web site. It contains many elements upon which  I could practice several different techniques. Rough stone surfaces, hairs, sharp edges, fine lines, deep shadows and bright colours. For this piece I used the pale grey pastelmat and my set of Faber Castell Pitt pastel pencils.

My first thought upon taking it out of it's pack was that the surface was not at all what I had expected. From what I had read I thought it would have far more texture to it. Although it felt abrasive, there didn't appear to be very much tooth. I went ahead and sketched out my composition.

As soon as I touched my pastel pencil to the surface of the Pastelmat it seemed to grab the pigment and left a beautiful rich mark, you hardly have to use any pressure at all in fact a light touch is definitely required. I began by putting in the rocky pebbles one at a time. Blending with my fingers immediately pushed the pigment right into the surface and after two or three layers I had the effect I wanted and it was obvious to me that I could have added many more layers if I'd wanted to. This paper just grabs and holds the pigment. What's more there doesn't appear to be any excess or loose dust, so sealant is not required. That's a real advantage as sealant always seems to dull the colours right down normally.

I was also able to finish the surface of the stones with quite a bright white in places without it becoming too contaminated by the underlying layers. Excellent! Because the surface isn't too heavily textured, sharp edges don't appear to be a problem either. A bit of deft blending with a colour shaper followed by a final layer with a very finely sharpened pencil gave a good clean and sharp definition between differently coloured areas and also allowed for some very fine detailed marks on the pebble surfaces.

The bright colours on the butterfly went down very easily with no sign of the pale grey paper colouring showing through. It was easy to blend the yellow into the orange and likewise the brown. I made some light indentations with my stylus where the fine hairs were to go before laying down the brown. The using a finely sharpened yellow ochre pencil, the hairs were lightly added on top. The furry texture on the butterfly's back was quite simply achieved using several different colours and blending with a colour shaper.

Finally I wanted to test out the addition of a wet medium to finish off. I used a little yellow gouache spattered on with an old tooth brush. Also some light blue using a very fine paint  brush.

Job done! This little painting took me about 5 hours to complete from start to finish and to be honest I found it very easy to do. So with plenty of confidence in this Pastelmat paper, I'm looking forward to starting on a full sized piece in the near future.

Cats Eyes

I have decided to make an effort to get back into pastel paintings. I used to use pastel a lot but sort of lost interest a while ago and, although I have produced one or two over recent times, I haven't really made much headway. So I've just ordered a pack of decent paper to use, after a bit of research I'm going for Clairefontaine Pastelmat and once it arrives I'll hope to get some large wildlife work done.

In the meantime, while I'm awaiting my delivery I found a small offcut scrap of Colorfix paper in my paper cupboard so decided to have a wee practice to try and get my eye in. It was only a small piece so my painting only measures 8.5 x 5.5 inches. I used a photograph from the Paint My Photo website for reference and cropped it down accordingly.

He turned out quite well I think and it's got me enthusiastic about starting on something larger. Roll on next week.

The Sunshine Of Your Love

I've just added this to my 'Bargain Room' on my Mighty Fine Art website. Based on a reference photograph from Wetcanvas by Cathy Sheeter, it's a pencil drawing I really like but it  hasn't sold and now I concentrate more on wildlife work I'm unlikely to exhibit it anywhere in future. So I've decided to take it out of it's frame which I'll use for something else and I've reduced the price quite a bit. It'll now be presented mounted but unframed.

Something In The Air

Here is my finished drawing, fresh off my drawing board today. About 16 inches x 11 inches on Bristol board from a reference photograph sourced on the Paint My Photo website generously shared by Sarah Stribbling. As you can see if you go to the link, the photograph was taken at a zoo by Sarah. I do enjoy putting them back into a natural scene from my imagination, or under a dramatic sky like this one.

This was to be quite a quick drawing but as usual, I got a bit carried away. I'm pleased with it, it turned out better than I'd hoped.

On My Drawing Board... yet another cheetah... stage 2

Stage 2 and I think one more session should see it completed, although still quite a bit to do. The log, foreground grasses and a general tidy up all over. The sky looks a bit busy in this scan but in real life is much less so but I may smooth it out a bit.

On My Drawing Board... yet another cheetah

Yes, it's yet another cheetah! Again from a reference photograph off the Paint My Photo website, this drawing is about 11 x 16 inches on Bristol board. Still a long way to go but I hope to finish it over the weekend.

Darkened Soul

A wet and miserable Sunday, it's rained all day, gave me the opportunity to spend all day finishing this drawing. It's about 21 x 15 inches, on Stonehenge paper based on a reference photograph from the Paint My Photo website. The reference actually was just a head and shoulders portrait so I had to invent the back half of the dog and finished with a nice dramatic sky effect which I always enjoy creating. The grasses seemed to give me the most trouble and I'm still not 100% happy with them but overall I think this is a successful picture.

I've wanted to draw or paint one of these dogs for ages but never found the right reference photograph to use until now, so thanks Sarah Stribbling for yet another wonderful photograph and permission to use it. I love these wild dogs and I may be tempted do do some more soon.

I read somewhere that if mankind had never domesticated dogs at all, this is how they would all be. Pure wild and instinctive pack behaviour, incredibly clever and successful hunters and foragers. Sadly a very rare and endangered animal nowadays. Whenever I get the opportunity to watch them (on telly usually) I'm always struck by their behaviour, body language and mannerisms which I can easily associate with the things my own dogs do.

African Painted Dog

I've never drawn or painted an African wild dog but have wanted to for ages. Unfortunately I've been unable to find a reference photograph to work from which I liked enough. Finally, this one appeared on the Paint My Photo website so I pounced on it. I've been working on this on and off for four days, although I have had a lot of other things to do as well.

I still have a lot to do on the face and particularly the grasses which have really given me some grief! I think they'' look better once I get the shadows in and some texture on the foreground. I'm going to have to make up the rear end of the dog as it was cropped out of the photograph but I don't think that should be a problem.....we'll see.

My Sunday Rant!

Since getting a computer at home and spending more and more time on it I've found that my handwriting, spelling and grammar, things I used to be quite proud of, have become worse and worse. I just hardly ever actually write anything down anymore and when I do I can hardly read it myself! (Being unmarried, does this make me one of the worlds most illegible bachelors?) I find I keep in touch with friends and family nowadays more and more by email or Facebook. I'd be lost without the PC. 

As far as business goes it's totally essential, no doubt about it. I spend hours every day promoting my website, finding opportunities, building up a following, writing daft blogs (like this one), shouting out to people that I'm here! Come and look what I've got! and thankfully it works..... I'm dead pleased I get to do for a living something I enjoy immensely, and work from home without having to suffer the rat-race any more. I do what I like, when I like and just by knowing my way around a pencil or brush to an acceptable level, I make a modest living from it.

Now I like a good 'Victor Meldrew' type of moan. I do it for fun, I'm quite well known for it. I love expressing my humour on my Facebook pages or here on my blog, and reading others. If people don't like my slant on life they can unfollow me, I don't really care. However it seems like every time I log into Facebook I am confronted by page after page of real boring negative stuff. Whenever Facebook makes changes, even very minor ones, people get all uptight and pee'd off about it and moan and moan away for weeks. Ooooh! The new Timeline.....sob! sob! What I say is, if you don’t like Facebook then don’t bloody use it! No one is forcing anyone to use Facebook, yet every person I see complaining about Facebook is still a member of Facebook! 

There are bell-ends who moan about the lack of privacy .....if it's that private DON'T PUT IT ON FB! Oh the drama queens.... if your heart has been broken, go buy a cat and some chocolate. Don't bore me with it as I'm only going to laugh at you. Personally, when I feel down I just go and drink some fabric conditioner...... it's always been a great Comfort to me.

So if you're suffering with PMT...don't have a go at me. You're ovary acting!

I imagine the little hurt and hard done-by faces of people as they complain that their images are being 'used' without permission. Oh come on.......you wanted as many people as possible to see them really didn't you? If not DON'T UPLOAD THEM THEN!

We don't own Facebook, we don't have to pay to use it. Bloody hell.... get over it!...at the end of the day it’s just Facebook. Every moment you spend complaining about Facebook is a moment you could be spending on things that are more important, like building your business in ways where you actually control the content.

 

On your own blog or website, you get to control everything. Facebook is just a tool to help you, a distraction  and a bit of fun.

 

I know plenty of people who don’t use Facebook and they haven’t died. (actually some have but I'm sure it was unrelated)

 

The morning after...

After a head on collision with a hyper-active juvenile Dalador.....well, there was only going to be one winner.


It didn't hurt much and Leon was completely unscathed, although he was puzzled as to why our wrestling match had to come to such an abrupt end. It was a bit embarrassing walking back to the van with blood pouring down my face and me trying to stem the flow with an old glove.

I had to go out really early this morning to avoid frightening the locals too much.

When will I learn!