Painting A Borzoi

I've been given permission to paint this stunning Borzoi.
I met him at a dog show over a year ago and took some photographs. His owner then sent me some better ones that show his beautiful coat blowing about. The photograph I'm working from shows much more character than the ones I took at the show.
I'm working in coloured pencil and watercolour on Strathmore Bristol Smooth paper and the size is about 14 x 10 inches.

Strathmore Bristol with a Vellum Surface

'Wet Behind the Ears'

6 x 4 inches on Strathmore Bristol

I'm always looking to try out new papers and brought a couple of different pads back from Canada this year.

One of them was a Strathmore 500 series Bristol with a vellum finish. It has a slightly toothier surface than my usual papers but I found it nice to use with coloured pencil. It took many layers, in fact I ran out of patience before the paper ran out of tooth.
Once again it is a creamy colour rather than a true white but that didn't matter with this piece as I covered almost all the paper.

I prefer this paper to Stonehenge which I find too spongy for my liking although I know it is the paper of choice for a lot of coloured pencil artists.

I've now found a supplier of Strathmore paper in the UK, Castle Hill Crafts who offer a mail order sevice:-

http://www.castlehillcrafts.co.uk/products/strathmore-artist-papers

Puma in Watercolour

The eagle has been put to one side while I painted this puma in watercolour.
It's 8 x 10 on a Stathmore paper I brought back from Canada. I just have the chest to finish and add some whiskers.
The paper is really white which is working well for me.