Deer in Richmond Park Wip day 2

Spent another hour on this, have started to work out the bone structure of the deer's head. I'm still mainly using hard pastels. Now all the snow has gone here I'm enjoying drawing this snowy scene, as it reminds how beautiful the park has been.

Deer in Richmond Park WIP

Just started this pastel today spent just an hour roughly blocking out the main colours in a hard conte pastel. I was lucky at the weekend when I was up in the park with my camera, the deer were up for a camera shoot! I think they were too busy nosing around in the snow looking for food to notice me. The colours at the moment are bright, these will tone down as I work in the texture of the fur with softer pastel.

Things are starting to thaw

I visited Richmond park again today, this time with my camera and without the boys. Things have definitely started to warm up, I was walking around the park, it's not looking quite as solid. The shrubs are shedding their covering of snow and I could hear the plopping sounds as chucks of snow fell to the ground.

I felt guilty that I'd not thought to bring some bread with me, the ducks and geese are now fed up with the big freeze, the ponds are still frozen solid except one pond in the Isabella plantation. This pond has a small fountain set up by the park keepers to keep a small part of their pond from freezing.

For the past year or so I have been trying to get a decent photo of a heron that hangs out in the park. I truly believe this bird is having a laugh at my expense. He knows when I haven't got my camera, he'll pose himself in the most picturesque scenes, and not move when I approach. One glimpse that I have my camera he's gone! I will continue to pursue this bird, today he played with me briefly allowing a shot at full zoom. Two steps nearer, he was off. I think I need a super zoom one that's about a foot long!

Here's the one I got today, the same as many others, not bad, but not quite good enough, but promising enough to make me continue my quest to photograph this annoying bird. To end on a more positive note, the deer today were being most obliging I think I have got a series of shots that will make a good painting, I'm thinking a pastel one would work well. With the thaw starting the schools should be open tomorrow, so hopefully I can crack on with this new project.