West Highland White Terrier

Life is pretty busy right now with the large canvases underway. Just to keep in touch with everyone I am posting an old pastel of 'Bob' a dear little West Highland White Terrier. He was done as a surprise present some years ago. Always fun to do this breed as their fur is great to do in pastel. Students of pastel can see (I hope - as this is an old photo) that the colour of the ground you choose to work on is pretty important and can become part of the picture. Try not to choose a contrasting colour as this will make your work much more difficult. If in doubt lay a photo of the subject up against several papers until you find one that matches.

Also here is a bee's eye view of a Foxglove - which are at their best now in the garden (thank you Pat for letting me play with your Macro Lens!)

May update and flowers

Just to prove I am still around - here are some flowers from our garden in the South East of the UK. There has been great growing weather with sunshine and showers so everything is doing well, even the daisies in the grass :) The peach Iris is my favourite, although sadly I do not know the variety. The sundial is down in the wilder part of the garden with pink aquilegias, grasses and foxgloves waiting to come out and the Clematis is a beautiful new compact variety found recently in a local garden centre and now growing in a tub.

On the work front, I am now commencing to put paint to canvas with the large commissions. Hopefully they will be shown here if the client gives his permission. If time permits I will fit in a pastel or two and some miniatures also - lots of ideas for them. Back to work! Please feel free to contact me as I love to hear from my visitors.

Lesley

Cat Study in pastel

As I am busy with some large commissions - hopefully the client will grant permission to show them on the web in due course - I am posting a 2007 pastel of a dear 'old style' Persian cat. He is a dear soul, very sweet and affectionate and it was a joy to paint his beautiful fur. As I took many photos of this lovely cat hopefully there will be more studies of him in the future. (For those who are experimenting with pastel the shadows in this study were browns and blues.)

Spring Blossoms

After a cold snowy winter a very welcome spring has arrived. Last week's mild temperatures and sun brought out the blossom on some of the trees and some spring flowering plants. As I am working - but nothing ready to post yet I thought I would share some photos of the garden. I hope you enjoy seeing them :)

Miniature - Graphite Study of Jenny

Still enjoying experimenting with the dura-lar film in the evenings, here is a new graphite study of a very pretty young girl called Jenny. I could not resist transferring her serenity from a photograph (she lives a long way from us) into a portrait. People are more of a challenge to draw/paint but very well worth the effort. This image is much enlarged - the original is 3" x 2.5".

Miniature - 'Aragorn' Graphite study

I am a big fan of Tolkein and Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings films so when I was looking for a small study to try out some Dura-Lar film this one of Viggo Mortenson as Aragorn seemed a challenge - because of the look in his eyes. The original is 2.75" x 2.5". O.K. I know it is not my copyright but I have no intention of using this experimental image anywhere but here.

By the way I thoroughly recommend Dura-Lar Acetate alternative, it is archival quality and a pleasure to work with. Just a shame that I had to ask a friend in the US to send me some as it could not be found here in the UK. There will be more graphite studies - I will be going back to Arabians and other animals very soon. These studies are a useful change in the evenings when taking a break from larger commissioned oil work.

Blacklord Caesaro - building up colour.

Here is the late stallion Blacklord Caesaro, a wonderful character and ambassador for the Arabian breed. I have been asked how to build up soft pastel on a black horse (the same principle applies to any black animal) and am using this study to show some of the under colours, blue greys and purple browns amongst others that are laid in before any blacks are used. Blue greys will give the hightlight areas and purple browns give a warmth to the whole pastel. Care must be taken with the purple brown however, otherwise you can end up with a 'sun burned' brown/black. Use the black pastel lightly over other colours and on its own only in the shadow areas. (I like Rembrandt's deep rich black.) Try to stay away from the pastel pencils as much as possible and use them only to finish the fine detail. Note to self: I must remember to take more photos when working as I am good at asking other artists to do this!