Questions answered

Hi all,
    Just a quickie here, because I realised that whilst reading my comments there were a few questions so I shall answer them best as I can.
    For Sue, yes I do have a daylight lamp which in the long winter months when the light is poor is a god send and the times I do not sleep all through the night or rise before the crack of dawn I will sit and draw, listening to my mp3 player, until I am that knackered enough to grab a few hours kip. It at these times though I can do my best work, no distractions via dogs,nagging hubby's,housework etc.
  For Katherine, most of the pictures I do stay with me, but if a person who's dog that I have photographed and created a picture from was interested in purchasing the finished picture then that is something I am happy to do  knowing it will go to a good home. My aim is to have a huge catalogue of doggy photos all shapes and sizes to continuously draw them in various poses, multiples of two or more and with their owners, the possibilities are endless.

Summer Fun

Hi all,
        The temperature's here in the UK have hit a record high of 30c over the weekend, and as much as I love the heat, I did find it a little to much, so sought out some shade. Got to say it has been difficult to stay put at the drawing board whilst it is like this, one just wants to suck up the heat into their bones to last them over the winter...well I do anyways lol. I am out and about doing Boot fairs every weekend as well, which eats into my time and July and August is the most busiest time for dog shows, so much to do and look forward to.
       The spaniel is almost finished and coming along a treat, but as always the scan does want to pick up the grey/blue tones so I will probably photograph the finished picture. The ear on the right is not quite right, it needs knocking back to a lighter tone, and some darker tones added on the outside. All in all this should be finished this week and I then must concentrate on a few other pictures that need my attention before starting a new one.....however that is if the sun does not pull me out into the garden or on to the beach !

Weekly Update

Hi all,
     So this is where I am at with the Spaniel and still aways to go, but as it is now 2.57 am on a Monday morning I wont be doing anymore to this until the sun gets up later on today. I have not done the colour swatch yet, but can say the most used colour is Prismacolours Peach Beige, Burnt Ochre, Rosy Beige, and Derwents Raw Sienna, Brown Ochre and Burnt Umber in various amounts. Got to say that I am quite pleased with it so far, and aim to have it finished this week, so I can start on my little red puppy.

     The weather here in the UK this week has been pretty crappy to say the least, with a cool easterly wind which has pegged the temperature's back somewhat, so much so that as I went out to a few boot fairs yesterday morning I had to buy myself a lightweight beanie hat to stick on my head which stayed there for most of the day. It has been very strong as well,especially at night and more likely to get something like this around Autumn or early Spring, however it has gone and the weather for this week is sun and more sun and I for one cannot wait to get outside for a few hours and warm me bones up! I had the camera with me as well, and took some more photos, of doggies a pair of cute Daxies,short and long haired, a gentle beautiful greyhound called Daisy, a statuesque Afghan called Shah, and a few others on me travels....pictures to come later on.
  
 Time now is 3.16 am and methinks I am off to bed for a few hours kip if I my aching joints will let me.

Dogs Galore

Hi all,
         Once again my thanks for your comments, always great to get and read them.

         I had super fun at the dog show with the sun popping in and out it was not too hot which was much better for the dogs. I did see a good selection from a Newfie, a pair of Bassett Hounds, Staffies, crossbreeds of all shapes and colours including a pair of brothers that were German Shepherd x with a Westie....these were a mischievous pair who stood out quite a bit simply because of their unusual shape and colouring......the bodies were that of a Westie, so short legged and quite long, but the colouring and fur texture of a GSD.  We also had a full coated Old English sheepdog who was very laid back, who was their his other pal who and I if remember correctly was a Portuguese Water Dog, shaggy black fur with silver paws. Three Whippets as well,Labradors,Golden Retreivers,Greyhounds,Lurchers, and a pair of elderly Deerhounds, along with a lady who did heel work/freestyle dancing with a Black German Shepherd...having never seen this before in the flesh so to speak I thoroughly enjoyed her work with this very handsome dog. Last but not least a super little Bedlington Terrier who I fell in love with straight away because his breed is one half of my own little Bluebell. I do have more photos and this is just a few of them, but I never seem to take enough so I came home with less than I had wanted, but the next show I do I shall fill the card up for sure !
       As you can see in the top picture I have done a little more on the Spaniel....long hair is always more of a challenge than short hair and since this update was scanned I have done more on the ear, erased it out and redone it again ! This is my first Spaniel and got to say I love those big melting eyes, which in turn jogged my memory to look through some older pictures that I took when I was using 35 mm film and came across a couple of pics that I took of Spaniels when I was living in Cornwall....it was not a bad shot and methinks still usable so I reckon I will be doing these two at some point. On my next update I will do a colour swatch for this dog, so you can see the colours I am using which are consisting a lot of pinks,sienna,ochres,beige's.

Lola Done and Dusted

         Lola is done and dusted now, and I am quite happy with the finished outcome, but as always I see things that I may have done differently. The splotches proved to me quite a challenge, and in the end I opted for suggestion rather than precise placings, and as I am doing this to please to please myself then I have no worries about that. I quite like the focus being on those intent staring eyes and the large fleshy mouth area, however it has been tweaked slightly in Picture It for the colour, but as with all things it looks so much better in the flesh so to speak.

     Tomorrow I am off with a friend to do a dog show, and hopefully will come back with loads of photos, in particular I would like to get a few agility shots as they have this going on as part of the main show,and I have always fancied doing something along this theme. After losing all the pics form my hard drive earlier this year, I wont be doing that again and will fill the card and burn straight to disk.
   Next up on my list to do is finish the Spaniel from a previous post and to start work on another puppy with that superb colouring of red/brown and orange tones, so my little swatch of colours will be getting used again and here is a little photo of the chappie. I must say his head looks a little big in this because of the angle of the photo, and I have another one of him that I could do, but I like the way he is looking up at me with those cute wonderfully coloured eyes. Not sure what breed of dog this is, methinks some kind of working type collie/sheltie/aussie type dog....if you know post a comment.

    

Do You Like Audio Books ?

Hi all,
       Second post of the day, wow I am doing well keeping my blog updated and hope to continue to do so! Saturday 5th was Drawing Day which I have to own up to completely forgetting, but I did take this out and sit in the garden listening to a audio book on my mp3. I love books and reading and probably learnt to read long before I was able to draw, but as an artist it is hard to do both at the same time hence audio books, which to me have been a godsend. Hubby bought me a small multi media player for Xmas and I have my fav music on there as well three audio books, my current listening is Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone, The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien, and king Solomons Mines...apart form KSM the other two will take forever to listen to as I also have all the other books from the set too ! I grew up on LOTR and read that as a youngster which provided me with a world of escapism into Middle Earth,amongst wizards,elves,hobbits,nazgul and all the weird and wonderful creatures that inhabited the authors imagination...just heavenly bliss. I also read other fantasy sci/fi books by the likes of Anne McCaffrey,Marion Zimmer Bradley, Stephen Donaldson, David Gemmell ( another fav author ) etc.....which fuelled my imagination towards fantasy art and the world of make believe. I was only thinking the other day that it was about time I did some more as it has been a while since I have created anything in this genre, so watch this space for that coming within the next few months.

Lola and Caput Mortuum

Hi all,
       Thanks for all your comments much appreciated as always.
       This is where I am at with Lola and the next update will see this finished, however I know it may of seemed a long time in doing but I wanted to share more of the stages with you all. You may ask what that little swatch of colours is doing next to the picture but that is in answer to a comment/question on my last post about the colour Caput Mortuum, from my epal Katherine. I love this colour and use it quite a bit in conjunction with all the other two shown,especially for dogs with red/peachy tones in and around the mouth/nose area plus body. Caput Mortuum is a made by Faber Castell in the Polychromos range and the other two colours come from Derwents Drawing Range of colours, which are very soft and waxy. I do have a puppy coming up soon whose colours will consist mostly of these three colours, which will be an interesting exercise in using a limited palette....more on that picture at a later date. I hope this will answer your question Katherine.

        

A Little More

Hi all,
         So here is a little more on Lola, mainly the nose area now and I am using mostly Caput Mortuum (love this colour) Raw Umber, Pink, and some Raw Sienna. It is quite a difficult to do as the nose as lots of wrinkles/folds and looks quite soft so I shall to get that in my finished drawing.

On a lighter note my blogging epal Katherine has given me an award, and I thank her very much for that, as with most of these awards you are supposed to pass them on to a number of artists....having done this quite a few times before I am not sure I will repeat this process, but if I do watch this space !

I am having the urge to take a break from the Dogs for a day and do some ACEOS, so as the weather is truly glorious here in the UK I might take myself into the garden and have a play around with my pens, which means doodles/abstracts/lineart.

Questions answered.

Hi all,
         Here is a little more of Lola, and got to say that I am really pleased with how this is progressing. The colours are still the same but I have added in a bit of Burnt Ochre and Burnt Umber for the darker parts and a smidgen of Olive Green Yellowish (Polychromos) to the eyes.
        A couple of readers who made comments as questions so I will answer those in the post.
        For Peter who asked what type of pencils I am using the answer is Prisamacolour Pencils and Polychromos for this particular drawing, although there are slight differences between the two, as with most things it does come down to personal preference and your style of drawing.
        For Katherine who also asked about my choice of working on more than one picture at a time, is something I have done for many years. I prefer it this way as I can put one down leave it for a couple of days, and come back to it later with fresh eyes..... whilst I am waiting I will work on something else and do the same with this,so I could end up with between two and seven pictures on the go at any one time...a bit like roundabout I suppose ! I have never had more than seven at one time, and I am not sure if it was more  that I could cope with it, but you never know.
       Christine also made an interesting comment about what you can do with blogger now as in adding standalone pages, changing the templates via blogger in draft and all the wonderful things that keep coming. I actually am starting to use this as my main website since the changes as I dont really have the time to keep updating various sites with info etc. I have a link to galleries,contact/bio page ( which needs a little more to pad it out a bit) more pages to add as I go along, and this is all integrated into my blog, which is free....what more can a artist want.!.......Hmmm perhaps an A3 size printer/scanner.....some new Luminance pencils...still thinking.