Chase The Tail

After seeing the wildlife artwork of some of the members of the Marwell International Wildlife Art Society I have been wanting to go larger. Sadly all that has happened up to now is that my waistline has expanded due to the excellent food I ate while on holiday.
However I have just started a new wildlife pastel painting using a full sheet of Sienna Pastel Card.
The size is 24 x 20 inches and I am using a mix of hard and soft pastels of several different brands.
I did the outline drawing in black pastel after doing rough sketches on cartridge paper.
I had already done the rough work before I went away and left the photographs and the cartridge paper covering some of the pastel card for a couple of weeks. The first photograph shows what happened, the card faded under the paper. After discussing this with my artist friend Katherine Tyrrell we wondered if this was due to the fact that the cartridge paper would not be acid free. If this has happened to anyone else I would be interested in knowing. I know that my drawing breaks several well established rules but I decided to give it a go anyway. What I hadn't considered was the dead space in between the two tigers, so my challenge will be to make that interesting and yet not draw the eye away from the cubs.
I started putting in some background colours using a range of Unison and Rembrandt soft pastels.
Once I had a base to work on I erased the reeds before adding the colour. I wanted them to stand out and not be contaminated by the background colours.
I continued to work on the background and made a start on the tiger.
Colours used so far are mainly as follows:-
Background:-Unison, BE7, 8 and 11, Rembrandt, Goldochre in 3 different tones, Windsor and Newton Burnt Umber tint 2 and a CarbOthello pencil 620.
Tiger:-
All the above plus CarbOthello black, Nupastels in several shades, I can't tell you the colours as my set is not labelled, Unison, orange 16 and 17 and yellow 7 and 14.
Plus a white charcoal pencil.


pastel
wildlife art
tiger
pastel demonstration

Back From the Wilds

We have just returned from a couple of weeks holiday in Scotland. Not at all restful with two teenage sons and three Rough Collies but very enjoyable.
Eldest son realised his social life was being terminally interrupted after a couple of days with no signal for his mobile phone and complained so much that he ended up going home on the train earlier than the rest of us.
Clinton, Juno and Roma had a great time, although Roma has decided that she is a lady in waiting and had to have the best spot in the car, the room etc. I'm yet to be convinced that it is not her imagination, but early days yet.
The photo shows Bryan and Clinton doing what men and dogs do best, and i'm not saying what that is.
Anyone got any suggestions for a caption.











Whilst I was away on holiday my friend and fellow artist took two of my originals to the handing in day for the Society of Feline Artists at the Llewellyn Alexander Gallery and they were both accepted for the exhibition which starts in September.
http://www.llewellynalexander.com/future.htm
My friend also had both her pictures accepted, more about the exhibition later, but I am very pleased my work was accepted.