New Artwork.

Pug Pencil Drawing

Bess

 Requests for dog portraits seem to be increasing at the moment, I have tried to vary the artwork though by using pencil instead of watercolour. I completed a couple previously that turned out well and so I kept to the medium of pencil for a couple of requests from our friend Becky. She wanted two portraits of pets, Bess & Toby, which sadly were not among us anymore. They turned out to be a challenge as the the pictures which I had to work with were quite old and not very detailed, but I was happy with how they came out and pleased that Becky was delighted with them. I then received another request from Becky the week after for her other dogs to be drawn!! all 5 of them!! I shall be starting on the first soon.

Gorilla

 After the commission work I wanted to carry on pencil drawing on black paper, being slightly quicker in creating than watercolour painting it was a good way to build up some work.

 "Midnight" French Bulldog

 "Silver" Gorilla

 "Raven" Labrador Puppy

Staying on black paper I wanted to get some practice in with watercolour/gouache as it seemed to be ages since picking up a paint brush. I chose a side head portrait of a Bulldog and decided to name the piece Winston. Also whilst in Norfolk for the week with my wife Sarah, I had the good news that Tim and Suzanne of Cley Spy, optics outlet in Glandford Norfolk, discussed and decided that they wanted to sell some of my greeting cards in the shop, wow!  All hands on deck now getting some new work submitted for printing as cards.

"Winston" English Bulldog

"Bully" for Me.

 Here are my latest two pieces of work, above we have "Bully", a watercolour painting that I predominately completed with a thought of a greeting card. I wanted to try another species of dog and with Bullies very close to my heart I decided to choose that, the size and shape of the painting should lend well to a card design.

The second piece was something totally new to me, drawing on black paper. This was fun and reasonably quick to do. Being on black paper I was only drawing the white and grey highlights, so the subject had to be right and what else other than a black French Bulldog. It seemed weird at first not detailing any of the black areas but I was pleased with the effect and will try some other animals for sure. 

"Tucker"

 Just completed my latest piece of work, "Tucker".

My wife Sarah had been harassing me for some time to paint Tucker the French Bulldog, so I finally gave in and here we have it. The photo used was one I took at Holkham in Norfolk last year, the reflection in the eye was of a tree that was nearby and rather than change the look I kept it as it was, the look on the face wouldn't of been right if I had corrected it.

"Oberon"

"Oberon"

Continuing the dog theme, my latest painting entitled "Oberon" was of a Border Terrier that was a much loved dog of a work colleague. I included some of my most delicate line work to date, purely as the brush was loosing hair the strokes became thinner and thinner, the reaction from the woman on handing it over spoke volumes to what the dog had and still does mean to her as I had captured the dogs character perfectly, I couldn't of been happier, I was really pleased how this painting had came out. 

Next up is one of "Tucker", the French Bulldog, the one that consistently distracts me from painting by wanting to sit on my lap! 

Cards have arrived!

 My cards arrived and I am very pleased with the results. The detail and colouring is the same as the original painting. Can't wait to see what some of the other paintings will look like as a card.

Two Bears and a Border. Recent Watercolours.

My painting has been pretty continuous recently, as soon as one is finished I am prepping the next one. I have completed a couple of Grizzly paintings, as always in watercolour. I really fancied trying some bear work and the first painting was a challenge to say the least with another first being fast flowing waters, the grizzly was going to be hunting for salmon. Overall I was quite happy with how the painting came out.

 And zoomed in a bit for details.

My second Grizzly watercolour painting was to be a close up detailed piece of work which I was very happy with when finished.

GRIZZLY - SOLD

My last painting I have finished was another new genre, a Border Terrier. I painted this as a close up and only half the dogs face being shown as I wanted to try for a new greeting card design where the cropped edge would form the outer edge of the card, once I have received them through the post I will show how they came out.

BORDER - SOLD

Ploughing straight into my next watercolour painting, I am staying with the dog theme for the next couple of paintings so stay tuned for uploaded images once completed.

New work despite distractions of the French Bulldog kind!

 Where has the time gone!! The last few months of 2015 just flew by and I tried to keep up with new paintings but was pre-occupied with having to look after the step daughters new puppy....a French Bulldog called Tucker. It seemed I did most of the looking after as I had more days off due to my shift work, and as it turned out whenever I decided to try and paint Tucker wanted to sit on my lap and either gaze out the window or sleep on my lap, not the easiest way to try and cope doing fine line painting! These 2 Zebra were the first to be completed.

 Next up was a request for a Jaguar cub for my youngest brothers daughter Sophie, it had to be done before Xmas as a present. A trip to Berlin with my wife in November and the years end was really approaching, I next planned a challenge in trying to paint a Silverback Gorilla, this took some time to get right and then it was the end of the year. Not having any plans on getting out birding as of yet I set about carrying on in painting mode and now into January have just completed a Rhino portrait, as shown below.

 And pictured here below is the reason for being inadvertently disrupted and delayed in doing stuff.

Tucker