King of the Castle

My son has named this King of the Castle, or furry pile! It was a slow one, I've got on order waiting for an electric pencil sharpener, for my pastel pencils, my broken wrist is taking its time to mend. These beauties I met at London Zoo, all piled on top of each other making the most of the sunny spot in their enclosure

Otter w.i.p.

It's been a slow one, not much free time, and lots of fur. But I'm begininning to get there. Lots more to do yet, I'm not sure if I'm keeping the stray tail on the left, I had thought it would be good to show that there are even more otters are in the pile. On the right corner are two bolders which have a nice texture, and I've plenty of more tweaking to the fur.

Otters.....

Just as well I enjoy painting fur! Two more otters to go, then I have a bit of tweaking to profiles to do, and further detail to the fur.

Half-way there

I've had a break from my art, and had a lovely break in the Caribbean. We started in Miami, then cruised to the Bahamas, Jamaica, Cayman Is, then finally Mexico before returning to Miami. I've now overcome my jet-lag/swaying so decided to get one with these guys. This is all about the fur, it's fairly labour intensive, I've been putting down a block of soft pastel, then working into it with finer harder pastel pencils and conte. Three more sweet ones to go!

Furry friends!

Today I got going on my second otter, the fur requires lots of layers of pastel to achieve the furry texture. Starting with a soft pastel, I've then worked into this with pastel pencil, then used soft pastel again to pull out lighter areas. I spent time today trying to understand the pose of the second otter. Now I've think he's beginning to work, I will get on with the back of the top otter.

Otters wip

First otter started, my broken wrist is making progress a bit slow, sharpening pastel pencils is hard, and in order to get plently of depth to the texture of the fur I need sharp pencils. I'm enjoying getting back to an animal painting, I'm just taking my time to allow my healing wrist to rest.

King of the castle!

King of the castle, that's the title my 7 year old son has given this. The drawing stage is taking longer then usual, especially on this pastelmat which is like a fine sand paper that wears down my pencils, meaning lots of pencil sharpening, my broken wrist has been getting lots of physio!

I'm ready for the pastel painting now, I think this needs to built up slowly to achieve the sleek glossy sheen on the fur. I've started to consider the way the fur follows the form of the otters, and how to achieve that strokeable texture!