Yawning Cub WiP

Yawning Cub, Work in Progress

My latest pencil drawing is a cub yawning as s/he comes out of the den in the morning light. I am using a 2H lead in a mechanical pencil on graphic film. Maybe that is why the 2H comes out so black compared to drawing on paper. I like the smoothness of graphic film and the fact that it doesn’t buckle if it gets damp. As graphic film is translucent, I often colour the drawing on the reverse. If I do it on the reverse of the Yawning Cub, it might solve the problem of colouring the roof of the den. But at the moment I am challenging myself to do it in graphite pencil. 

I have had another challenge this week. I was blending pastel skies and distant hills. I was working on canvas primed with clear Colourfix. (Colourfix is brilliant for mixed media and I am using it to underpaint and sketch portraits in oils.) Colourfix is gritty which is why it holds the pastels. 

Many artists work with pastel on a sandy textured surface but in the past I always worked on Canson Mi-Teintes paper. But the paper absorbs water and buckles which is the main reason that I started working on graphic film. I wonder if I can prime graphic film with Colourfix? I will try it some time. 

Anyway to get back to the gritty surface on the canvas, I was blending the pastel with my finger and it got very red and sore. The next day I used another finger to blend pastel on the next 2 portraits and that finger got very sore. The next day I sacrificed a third finger on a big painting of a boy on his horse. 

After that I decided to preserve my forefinger and look for a solution so I searched for Colour Shapers online. I believe that they are made of silicone. I ordered 2 in finger sizes and another silicone blender which looks good for large areas. 

Time will tell. Today I drew, and did some oil painting. 

I also took Jasper for a walk. We have been kept in by the bad weather and he was beginning to go stir-crazy. Dogs are so valuable to get artists away from the easel and into the fresh air. 

Here are the silicone blenders. The black one is harder than the light grey. I don’t know which is best. 

Lady in Sunglasses

Lady in Sunglasses

This is not going to be the easiest oil on canvas portrait that I am going to do. I can’t see the lady’s eyes behind her sunglasses. But I can see her charming smile.

The sunglasses are making some interesting shadows and reflections on her cheeks (which I haven’t painted yet). Meanwhile, I have been concentrating on blending the highlights. And now she has a mouth and an indication of where her teeth are. Teeth take a lot of blending to get them to sit back in a mouth nicely. There is nothing worse than a portrait with shining white teeth!

I am sorry that this is such a short post. I was going to write about last night’s episode of Civilisations on BBC2. It was very interesting on the subject of religious art. But I fell asleep this afternoon and I can’t write a quick note on such an important topic. It will take a few edits. Look out for it soon.

Getting on with the Portrait

Getting on with the Portrait

I have continued to experiment with the skin colour as painted in water mixable oils.

I read that I could add conventional oil paint and it would still be water mixable as long as I only used a small quantity. I bought a small number of oil paints including gold ochre which I used to find very useful for skin. The new paints arrived today and they worked well. 

Portrait painters prefer that their subjects don't see the portrait until it is finished. My friend turned up unexpectedly on Sunday afternoon. I would have hidden the painting if I had known. She was worried about the "wrinkles". I was thinking about the lines on her forehead and it was later that I realised she probably meant the construction lines round her eyes. The portrait won't look anything like that when it is finished. Her mouth is tight in the reference photo but I will soften her expression a lot. 

I like the paint to dry off between painting sessions. So I have started another portrait, but because I was struggling with skin colour at the time, I chose to paint a black and white dog. The dog is a crossbred Jack Russell terrier and I caught a lovely smiling moment from her. 

You won't be able to see it clearly but she is pencilled into the hole in the middle of the painting. I paint the surroundings first because the fur/hair has to be brushed over the grass.