Chocolate Labrador Finished

Speeding towards the finish line of this one, the Chocolate Labrador is complete. This has taken approximately 25 hours to complete and will be added to my Puppy Collection.

Now onto the Black Labrador...

A bit of a leap of an update here. The face is now complete and I should be able to speed through the body to have this complete by the end of the day.

I like to set myself targets as to when a drawing should be finished. Many artists avoid this, believing that a drawing should take as long as it takes. I totally agree with this, but have got to the stage where I can gauge roughly how long a drawing will take before commencement - I then set a target slightly shorter than that time. This way, I am forced to spend more time drawing that I otherwise would.

This one should be done within 3 days of starting, which will give it about 25 hours (fairly standard for my Puppy Collection). When I have done these without targets, they have often taken a week - a lot of procrastinating goes on!

Chocolate Labrador Puppy

Onwards with the Puppy Collection, I am adding the Labradors to the collection. Beginning with this Chocolate Lab, I have a Black Lab lined up. It's going to be a little tricky ensuring I capture the subtle differences between the two, especially depicting the difference in tone between the two in black and white.

Boxer Finished

The Boxer Puppy is finally finished.

This is a relatively small one at only 18x20cm.

The original is currently availably, as are Open Edition prints.

Still Boxing

Yesterday's work. I have left the ear half complete to demostrate how I tackle short, light hair. You can see that I have begun by drawing in the separating lines of the hair. These lines follow the direction of hair growth, whilst maintaining a level of randomness.

From this point I will add some darker lines where the hair separates more and then add tone over the top.

You can see how much the lines make up the form of the subject as the ear already has a degree of form, even though it has no shading or tone as yet. I would hope to have most of the face finished by the end of the day.

Boxer continued

Here is yesterday's work. I didn't get as much done as i should have, but the forehead is complete with all it's folds of skin. I will work down to the nose and it should be plain sailing form there on.

Straight onto the next one. This is the beginnings of a Boxer puppy.

Should be a fairly quick one this.

Springer Spaniel Finished

Finally finished with this one. I have kept the background to just a light shadow on the ground - I want this to sit with my Puppy Collection and head studies, so didn't want any background to distract the viewer.

The finished piece is approx 21 x 30cm.

Onto a Boxer now.

Springer Spaniel

A bit of a leap with this one from the last update. I'm almost there, just the white of the chest and one more leg to go. I should have this finished by the end of the day.

Springer Spaniel

I've been absent for quite a while now renovating our garden, so there hasn't been much drawing recently.

I've finally begun a new piece to add to my ever-expanding dog collection. This is a young Springer Spaniel with that alert stare so ubiquitous to this breed.

This is going to be followed by a Boxer study and a Border Terrier.

'Solitude' - complete

This is finally complete and ready for printing, mounting and preparing for this Easter weekend's Game Fair at Selby. If anyone is in the area, drop in and say hi (or purchase loads of prints!!). I will be showing all of my recent farm studies as well as my wildlife and dog prints. It is a 4 day event so if you come on Monday, I may look like a zombie!

Getting there...

We are slowly but surely moving along with this. I had hoped to get this finished on Saturday, but I didn't get as much drawing time as I had hoped. I have made a start on the foreground grass, mud and moss, which is the harder area. The background grass should be relatively quick to draw (the good old scribble technique!).

I need to have this finished and mounted up for an Agricultural Show I am at this Friday in Selby.

No more stone walls!

If anyone sees me starting a drawing with stone in it, please stop me. My hand is destroyed by this barn today. I don't know what it is about the action of drawing stone, but it take so much more out of me than most other things.

Of course, there is still a little stone wall in the bottom right corner, but i'm sure I can handle that...tomorrow!

Just the grass to go with this now and we should be almost there.

A little more

Today's work. The wall is in and the stone barn is beginning to take shape. I should have the barn complete tomorrow.

Third horse

Yesterday's update. The third horse in the piece is almost done. I will need to tweak the tone a little once the background is in.
You can now just about make out the outline of the stone barn and stone wall (a lot of stone to get through...again!).

It's been a few days since my last post. I have been working on a commission which I couldn't really post here.

This is the beginnings of a new piece - still on the farm scene, but this time it's horses. These two aren't too detailed as they're only about 4cm each in length. They will be in the background, on top of a hill. The entire piece should finish up at about 30x20cm.

Cows Finished

The cows are finally finished.

The end result finished up at 22x32cm, slightly smaller than I usually work to, but that is plenty big enough for all that foliage and grass!

Still cowing around

I'm a couple of days late with this upload, so I may indulge you with two updates today.
I only have the foliage of the tree left and a bit of messing around with the contrast in places and I should be done...definitely by the end of today!

Grass, grass and more grass

There certainly is a lot of grass to get through here. I have almost done the easy part, the grass in the distance (let's face it, that just requires a bit of scribble), but still have the grass in the foreground that will require more detail. Plus, there is a lot of negative drawing to get through to finish the foliage of the tree...

taking shape..

A few more hours done today on this. I appear to be procrastinating when it comes to the grass and foliage (come on, there's a lot of it!) but, now that I have drawn everything else, I don't have much of a choice but to dive right in.

Anyone want to finish this for me???