Progress is Slow

I am still printing so drawing has been almost non existent, however I am slowly going in the right direction with the tiger.
I wanted an image to put on my 'About Me' brochure for Patchings so I got my son to take a hand rather than a head shot.

I've also been doing a stock take today and have decided to offer a couple of my original cats for sale.
'Black and Gold', to bid click here.

9 x 7 inches coloured pencil on black colourfix paper.

Graphite Lion Continued

After printing hundreds of fine art cards ready for Patchings Art Festival I had a break and went back to my lion.
How can you tell I'm struggling with the fur in front of his ear?

Making a Captive Animal Wild

One of my pet niggles is seeing a really nice painting of a wild animal with a background that makes it obvious the reference material has been taken in a zoo. The number of lions, tigers, giraffes, meerkats etc that I've seen painted with a background of vegetation not native to the animal is amazing.
I know this might not matter to some people, it's just something I don't like.
So if my reference is of a captive animal I try to incorporate a background consistent with the animals natural habitat using the following steps:-

1. Make sure I know what (if any) subspecies the animal is as this might affect the range. For instance the tiger I'm currently drawing is an Amur Tiger (Panthera tigris altaica) I know the scientific classification doesn't matter but I have a particular interest in the classification of mammals dating back to my University days, sad I know :(
2. Have a look at the range of the animal and if there's a choice decide on the habitat I'm going to use.
3.Decide what sort of background (if any ) I want to incorporate.
4. Using my reference books, DVD's and the internet look at as many photographs of my chosen area I can find until I feel comfortable with the setting.

I took the photograph of the Tiger at a Wildlife Park in the South Lakes, hopefully I can add some vegetation more appropriate to the Russian Far East.

Tiger in Mixed Media

I'll post a progress shot of the lion tomorrow; it's almost finished.

I'm also working on this tiger in coloured pencil, acrylic and watercolour, approximately 12 x 8 on Fabriano Artistico.

I'm still busy printing cards and prints ready for Patchings Art Exhibition, I could do with each day being 48 hours long at the moment.

Drawing Animal Hair

I'm starting work on my next demonstration and by popular request it will be a 'how to' about drawing animal hair using coloured pencil.

So I sat down with my reference photographs, my paper and pencils, Adobe InDesign to use for the layout of the scans, and ground to a sudden halt as I realised animal hair is much too wide a subject for one step by step.

For a start do people want long hair, short hair, curly hair, wiry hair, fine hair, course hair? Then there is black hair, white hair, tabby hair, flecked, tipped, the list goes on. My basic stroke making stays the same but I do use slightly different things depending on both the type and colour of the hair.

So I'm going to break the subject into bite size chunks then people can pick which demonstrations(s) they are interested in.

My aim is eventually to offer a 1 day workshop on either drawing a dog or cat portrait in coloured pencil.

I plan to have them ready for sale at Patchings in June and from my website around the same time.

I also hope to have worked out the details on the workshop by early June.

Watch this space for updates on my progress.

Graphite Lion Continued

I've continued working on the lion. I decided to work some of the darker tones in the mane so that I could decide how light the blond fur should be.
My card stand arrived today and I'm very pleased with it. It was easy to assemble, freels strong, rotates smoothly and will hold at least 60 different designs.
It will look far more professional having my cards displayed in a stand rather than spread out on the table.

Two ACEO's, Lion and Cat.

To bid click here.

To bid click here.

I've had another busy day printing so I finished two ACEO's.

The lion is on Fisher 400 pastel paper, the cat is on Uart 800 premium sanded paper.

I have ordered a floor standing card stand so that I can display my cards to better effect at the shows I plan to attend. It is a collapsible, rotating model, keep your fingers crossed it is easy to put together. Cody's in season and Rio and Clinton have become singing dogs so my brain is frazzled and will not be able to cope with anything complicated.

I'll post a photograph once it's all set up.