doggie day 2

I made a small start on this one. I'm using soft pastels then working into them with coloured charcoal pencils to create the texture of the fur. Well we are still missing the chaos that most of the country seems to be effected by, namely the snow.

We are lucky I suppose, but a small amount enough for a snowman would be nice!

Where's our snow?

I know lots of people are cursing the chaos that the snow brings, but as normal my neck of the woods is missing it, we've had a small sprinkle today, but its not looking like it is going to hang around.

I've just received a new commission to keep me busy during the cold snap. Its a A4 pastel portrait of a Staffordshire bull terrier.

I had an hour yesterday to get a basic outline down in pastel pencil.

Come on in, the water's lovely! Finished!

Well here's my latest pastel. I'm going to use it in my next exhibition in Richmond at the Orange Tree Theatre, the exhibition is running from 14th Dec to 5th February.
I'm a bit fed up because I spent an hour or so framing this today thinking I had a good photo of the painting, however today inserting the photo on to my blog I realised that the board is showing on the bottom right. The edge of the painting has been distorted in the photo, so I can't crop the board out. I can't take a photo of it the painting glazed, so I have no option but to take it out of the frame to re photo, grrrrrrrrr!

Keeping it loose

Today I filled in the penguins, I haven't gone into too much detail, I'm not sure I will. I need to make a few areas stand out a little more, and play with some highlights. There are also some rosy hues reflecting off the white areas such as their tummies.

The sea I've played with a dry bristle brush to re-expose my original background colour. I also tried wetting the pastel, but was a little concerned I would get tide-marks as it dried. The penguin on the far right, I need to tweak his arm, its going to close to the edge of the paper.

Come on in the water's lovely!

After the recent headlines about the British Beaches having the best blue

flag records ever, I guess this is quite topical! Pure chance, I made a start on this back in July, however had to put it down as the school hols meant I needed to put on the hat of full-time Mum, of which I have no complaint! After the Summer I've been fortunate to have a good run of commissions so this one was left on the shelf. Now I can finally get back to this, I'm hoping to put it into an exhibition in December.

This started out as an experimental painting, its A3 pastel on pastelmat, not an unusual combo for me, however, I used a gouache wash to create a bespoke coloured pastelmat. I was not sure how the tooth of the pastelmat would handle the gouache wash, the result was, extremely well. My plan now is to work onto it in pastel, I may also try wetting the pastel once on the paper a technique I've yet to try.

Catching up, getting back up to speed

This is a WIP of my last commission. Due to being off line for a month I couldn't share this one on my blog. Its an A3 pastel painting on pastelmat paper. The landscape is a view in Scotland. It's already been handed over. I'm now on to my next project.
This time its back to a piece I started in the Summer. I've an exhibition coming up in December, I'm hoping this one is going to be a good one!

I'm back!

NEVER AGAIN will we change our broadband. One month to get it back!

Here's Bertie, he's pretty much there, I'm going to send a picture to his owner to see what she has to say. She has seen the earlier progress and likes his attitude, so we'll see.

I'm a whole commission behind on my blog, I've just finished and handed over the one after this. I post a wip of it tomorrow.