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Diesel, Staffordshire Bull Terrier



Scooby, English Springer Spaniel

My first commission of 2011.  Scooby - an English Springer Spaniel from Hampshire.  A4 white velour paper with a mix of soft and hard pastels for this one to give him a softness around his lovely floppy 'chops'!
Martina Newton Art
Martina Newton Art
Martina Newton Art
Martina Newton Art

Riley, Border Terrier



This is Riley, a last-minute commission before Christmas.  A straight-forward graphite on A4 Waterford watercolour paper.

Nelson, English Bull Terrier

He's all finished now and I've collected him from Brown's Fine Art Gallery in Locks Heath as I wanted him properly photographed and printed so as I've got a copy for future art fairs.  I've really enjoyed using the acrylic inks as they're great for fine detail and the colours have a great strength.  Rapidly becoming my favourite medium (beginning to overtake coloured pencil).


Nelson step by step

Spirit, Cavalier King Charles Spaniel

Here's Spirit from start to finish.  A lovely Cavalier King Charles spaniel who is just like Minty - one of our family dogs when I was growing up; so I particularly enjoyed painting this one!  Having said that, I do enjoy them all.  I can't believe I haven't painted at all up until a few years' ago - all that wasted painting time!  Now, Spirit, I've had the pleasure of meeting on several occasions as Spirit's owners and myself often walk our dogs in the same park.


Nelson, English Bull Terrier


Nelson, English Bull Terrier.  Nelson
part-way through; he's being painted
on A3 watercolour board in acrylic
paints and inks.  I needed a few
reference photos for this one as the
original photo was a little over-exposed
- the hair couldn't be seen clearly enough.  
I've found photos of other EBT's online
so as I can get an idea of how it should
look close-up.


Spirit, Cavalier King Charles Spaniel

Spirit
This is Spirit, a beautiful Cavalier King Charles Spaniel.  It's soft pastels for this lad too.  A3 size on velour paper.

Jubilee Rhum completed!

Jubilee Rhum
Jubilee Rhum completed!  He was a pleasure to draw and I think pastels were the best choice as they really brought out the softness of his fur.  German Shepherd's are such stunning dogs to draw with their fantastic 'wolfiness'!

Nearly Jubilee Day!

Busy this morning, darkening down and adding  more detail.  I've just popped downstairs to upload this and also to give my two naughty boys a kong each.  Max hasn't had one before so isn't too sure what to do with it.  Buddy's throwing it round the room, but the treats inside are stuck to the peanut butter!  That's enough now - back to work . . .

Jubilee Rhum

He's beginning to take shape . . .

Today I darkened down the darker areas of fur with black conte pastel.  The mouth I gave a layer of pale blue covered with two different pinks; I'll come back to this at the end.  The eyes: I used three different browns; again, I'll continue with the fur then go back and make a few more changes to them to sharpen the definition.  For some reason I find noses incredibly difficult!  It doesn't make sense, I know, because I find eyes and mouth ok, but I'm building the nose very slowly as velour paper isn't very forgiving with mistakes!

Jubilee Rhum

Jubilee is my latest commission; a working police dog and all round handsome chap.  I'm doing him in pastels as I did 'Relax with a Max' - except on amber-coloured velour paper.  The paper is A3, my favourite size to draw and he's attached to my new Reeves drawing board which I'm very pleased with!  Here are some in-progress photos:

Jinxie in graphite

I'm pleased with progress on this one as it's a technique I've never tried before.  I attended a workshop in  June with Clive Meredith (www.artofclivemeredith.blogspot.com) and was very inspired by his use of layering different grades of graphite pencil to get a truly lifelike depth.  This is my effort so far and is probably about 15 hours' work by now (it is A3!)

Gemma Finished

Portrait of Gemma, beautiful tabby cat

20 x 30 cm coloured pencil on Fabriano 50% cotton rag paper.

Gemma, short-haired tabby and white (1989-2003)





A little bit more of Toffee . . .

More depth added now, trying to bring out the muzzle so it looks 3D.  A little bit more detail on the eyes, but still quite a way to go . . .

Toffee: the first few stages

I've decided to start this portrait a little differently beginning with a dark background.  It looked a little alarming in a messy burnt umber, but the latest edition of Leisure Painter had an article showing a step-by-step of a painting of a springer spaniel, which I thought I'd use for practice.

Working from dark to light seems to give a good impression of  the fur closer to the skin.  I've used titanium white followed by sand followed by mixtures of mars black, white and yellow ochre.  I think it'll need several coats to give it more depth of colour and tone.




Buddy, from study to canvas




I decided to give my new Cryla acrylics a try-out and thought I'd transfer my practice piece of Buddy onto a canvas.  This was the first stage - a sketch in 2B pencil on a canvas 40 x 50 cm.




I thought blue for the background as I could then use some greyish blues in his coat to bring the two together.  Next, I blocked-in some of the main colours, including some red on his ears, no doubt inherited from his Irish setter mum!

 

He's taking shape now; I've used a range of greys, browns and whites to give him the different contrasts he has in his, what looks like, predominantly black coat. It's amazing just how many colours a black dog can have in their coat.
Here he is finished for now.  I've left him on the easel, so might add a few hairs here and there.  This was taken in quite gloomy daylight so the colours don't look as rich as the ones above.  Overall, though, a good likeness of Buddy the 'Border Setter', as we like to call him.

Rosie & Gracie, stage-by-stage




















I first sketched an outline of the dogs, then, using grey velour paper, I put the sketch over the top and with the lid of a pen, lightly pressed through to give an indent.  I wasn't sure whether I'd be able to rub out pencil marks, so this seemed the way to go.

I lightly applied the base colours with Rembrandt conte pastels.






















Rosie's complete and now to continue with Gracie.  For the detail I used Faber-Castell pitt pastel pencils.  I worked mainly from left to right in order to avoid smudging, but I also covered up sections with clean paper to rest my hand on.





















Here they are - both finished - ready in time for Mothers' Day!

Now off to the framers for mount, backboard and cellophane.

Rosie & Gracie, Rescue Greyhounds

Gracie





This is Gracie, a retired rescue greyhound.  She's cheeky, a prolific food thief and a bit of a 'tomboy'.
Rosie






This, on the other hand, is Rosie; the 'lady'
of the household.
Also a retired rescue greyhound; a 
beautiful brindle colour which I'm
looking forward to drawing
 

All finished . . .

Here he is . . . white picture mount, backed and covered in cellophane to keep him clean.  I thoroughly enjoyed drawing him - he looks a real character.

Just the ears and bib to go . . .

 

Another two hours or so and most of the detail is there.  I'm finding this much easier now I've got a daylight bulb in my lamp; much easier on the eyes and no distracting colours thrown onto the page.  I've just got the detail of the ears to do.  I left these as they look a slightly different texture to the body fur - more silky - and the curls are a tad tighter.  The bib, also, needs some shading as it's too stark as it is.

Progress on Bertie

 I'm happy with the sketches and now have transferred the outline to some Fabriano 50% cotton rag paper.  I've not used this before, so a great learning experience all round.  The pencils I'm using are Faber-Castell and Derwent graphite.

 

This is progress about 2 hours from the outline.  Still a fair few layers to do in order to get the depth.

 

This photo shows the original image, although I'm using a couple in order to check between features that aren't too clear.

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