Drinking on the job

Last night after a few glasses of wine I had a quick look at my progress. Took one look at the stag decided the body was rubbish and wiped it off altogether. I guess the wine gave me confidence to do this drastic action!
I hadn't planned to do anything to this today but felt I should roughly put a new body on him. I had another look through all my deer photos and came up with this. I think he looks much more 3D and imposing. He's very rough, I haven't worked in any fur texture, but already I think its an improvement. Prehaps I should view my art with drunken eyes more often - only joking!

Deers relaxing wip, day 8

Well still plodding on with this. Its definitely one that can't be rushed, lots of fur which means lots of layers. Then there's the grass, lots of that too. I'm starting to work more on this as a whole picture, jumping around as I see things. The deer at the back are still very basic and I've only played with the grass on the left and the foreground.

A week in...

I've had a slow day today, not too much change, I had another go at the stags antlers and head shape. Had some good news, I've got two commissions to do, received the photos for both today. Fortunately they aren't too urgent, so I can see this one through first. Eventually I am going to work some more reddish brown into the deers coats, but they are abit mid moult.

Rough and ready! Wip day 6

I feel I'm getting a better idea how this is going to work. Its still very crude and in need of refinement. I finally had a couple hours straight to work on this. The stag is beginning to shape up he has a fantastic set of antlers. I've just about got their shape, now I need to give them some form. I also had a play with the grass and background, I want the background fairly soft, but defined enough to give the sense of depth in the woods.

This is going very slowly.......

I nearly didn't post today, however I think its important for me to see my daily progress. This was an hours work, this is fairly typical for my art its very disjointed an hour here and there. Tomorrow I hope to have some time to actually crack on with this. I need a few undisturbed hours to get a proper feel for the painting.

Phew, survived my son's 6th Birthday party!

Spencer decided this year that he would like a ceramics painting party, you know the cafes/workshops where you pick a kitten and paint it really badly! I quite liked this idea, as I like to encourage any creativity in him. The only drawback was the workshop wasn't providing much help apart from a quick instruction and then run in the opposite direction. So Steve and I were left with 16 kids ranging in age from 5-9years. The first 15 minutes were lovely, angelic children engrossed in the creative process. The boys however were speedy, deciding to be simplistic in their work so 20 mins into the hour's worth of painting they were finishing and getting restless.....
40 minutes later of creative entertainment I'm knackered! Bring on the mountain of party food, 15 minutes of quiet. Then I have 16 pairs of expectant eyes upon me that are now pumped up on sugar - joy!
I have managed today to get some painting done, Spencer and Michael went to the cinema with their Dad, so I took to opportunity to do a bit.
I've worked on the deers legs, then decided to start another deer. This little one has proved tricky, I really struggled to get his head shape, still not happy but this is where I'm at.