George is finished

Did the final pulling together of this painting today. I decided yesterday that I really liked the movement of George's coat, and wanted to capture this in the landscape as well. I've just received a lovely response from the lady who commissioned the painting. I've used some strong contrasting colours to draw the eye to different parts of the painting, hopefully taking the eye through the composition.

I must finish my lioness, I'm also very excited about a new project. I've recently joined a group of Kingston artists called Kingston Artists Open Studio (KAOS). We are planning to exhibition twice a year in the centre of Kingston. As well as this we are opening up our studios to the public in the Summer. It's a great chance to get to meet the artists and get an insight to how our paintings happen. I'm waiting for our website to be completed, then I will post a link and give more information on the dates of the exhibition and Open studio event, I'm sooo excited!

George is getting there

I think now I know how to bring this painting together. I definitely need to put more contrast into George's shaggy coat. The rock/cliff under his nose needs reshaping, and the lead needs to curve out of the frame. The rocks in the mid-ground need more definition. George is a pale dog, but I'm thinking his body needs more lowlight colours.

Too much fur

I've had one of those days where I question how much difference I've made to my painting. George is very shaggy, and his fur is matted from a recent dip in the sea. There are lots of layers of fur, all wavy. I'm thinking I may play on the wavy theme in the landscape, maybe Van Gogh in style, lots of movement in the strokes.

Dingy Days

I'm getting fed up with the recent weather, it's so dark all day. Not very helpful when you are trying to pick up subtle tones and colours. By 2.30p.m today the light was so low. I do have a daylight bulb which is better than normal light bulbs that knock out the yellow hues, but it still tends to bleach out light colours so not very good for this work.

I've started to work some texture into the soft pastel using charcoal pencils mostly using a mossy green and lavender.

I'm moving onto the body for now, the fur is darker, there is also lots of textures where his fur is drying after a dip in the sea. The background is St Ives in Cornwall, a beautiful place, which I know well.

Champagne blonde

Today made a start on my latest commission, George the golden retriever. It's an A3 pastel painting. He's very blonde, his head is almost white, so I think it's more accurate to describe him as a blonde retriever, more peachy champagne than golden. I've blocked some colours in to decide my overall palette. George is a mature chap in this photo, a bit baggy, something that happens to us all eventually. Light coloured fur is always a challenge, it tricks the camera, so looked bleached out. George also has very dark eyes which are unexposed in the photo due to the light fur.

All change

Not a lioness! His name is George a gorgeous golden retriever, who unfortunately is no longer with us. I've just received an urgent commission for an A3 pastel painting. So once again the lioness has to go on the shelf.

Here's the lioness so far, it's been a bit of the a love/hate realationship. Love the th velvetery smooth texture, hate the fact you work into the pastel, it falls off! I'm thinking watercolour technique, simple no messing!

Getting to grips with a new laptop

The last few days have been a bit strange. My husband and I decided to treat ourselves to a MacBook Pro. It's great but very different to the laptop I was using before. Posting pictures, saving photos, downloading them in the first place all foreign.

Today I started to work some texture and tone into the soft pastel on my lioness painting. I'm not totally sold on the velour yet. It's very hard to retain dark areas, which get covered with pastel as it falls off the paper when you work into it. I'm keeping an open mind, as I've only played with this today for an hour.