Finished the Elephant!

Well, I had a glass of wine, pondered and tinkered a bit. I've finished, not sure if I like it. Some things work, I think the elephant in the background has lots of movement. The foreground on the left doesn't work, but not sure what to do with it. I'm going to post this up on my artists forum,(http://www.artforums.co.uk/index.php),
see what they think.

Day 3 Elephant work in progress

Worked on the bodies of the elephants this morning, darkened up the bottom left side, before adding some of the bush into the foreground. Started to put in the background, not sure how much detail I want, as the elephants have so much texture, I don't want to loose them in it. Still need to tone down the picture, and work in some more texture on the elephants. I think I've reached the stage where I ponder it over a glass of wine. As its only 1pm, I'll stop until this evening!

Day 2 Elephant work in progress

Only had an hour or so to do a little more to Elmer and friend. I've blocked in some of the elephants body in the foreground, this will eventually have some bush over it, I intend to highlight this with some bright colours, so wanted to keep the elephants body simple.
I've had a bit of fun with a pastel stump. Looks like a pencil, but is made entirely of cardboard, including the tip of it. It blends and removes pastel. I've been using it to soften my tones, and to add wrinkles into the layers of pastel.

Elephants work in progress

Day 1





Time for another pastel experiment, again on A3 paper. I really like the photo I'm using for this one. My Dad took this in South Africa, so these are the real wild ones!
I've started with very unsubtle tones, I've been swatting up on pastel techniques, it recommends that you start with hard pastels, then end with the softest. The reason for this is so you don't overload the tooth (grain) of the paper. This enables you too build up lots of layers, therefore texture, these elephants have lots of texture. Their wrinkles are similar to mine after a heavy night! I have used a very bright almost electric blue in the background, most of this I intend to loose once I add the detail of the bush.




This is reminding me of Elmer the Elephant. If you've not got children, Elmer is a technicoloured elephant. I have added big blocks of colour, that once I've added all the details of bush and wrinkles will hopefully be more subtle flashes of colour, but still intense in hue.
I've sprayed with a very light layer of fixative , to hopefully help it take some more layers of pastels

Kittens

Hi, I've been busy entertaining my boys, so haven't had chance to do much art. I had a spare half an hour today, so thought I'd get some sketching practise. This was a quick drawing on A4 in charcoal. These little darlings are my brother's 4 week old kittens, unbelievably sweet.