Exhibition 2018

February saw three of my pictures appear at a group exhibition at Nature In Art in Gloucestershire for about two weeks. This is already the fourth year I have put something in for it -- has it really been that long since I joined??

Three of my pieces were on display, including a print version of my 'Three Goats Gruff' painting (I posted here sometime last year: http://fransdesign.blogspot.co.uk/2017/06/three-billy-goats-gruff.html ) to add some colour, as I usually submit the more sketchy and limited colour palette pieces. The other two were newer pieces and more in my usual for-display mould. It's ever lovely to have the chance to display some pictures, often otherwise rather hidden away.

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'Relaxing Capybara'

As ever, my photos were my friends for reference and inspiration. I had two clear photos of a capybara at Bristol Zoo, one with him/her sat and the other with his head in a bucket... and so I merged the poses to be two capybaras in this sketchier piece and in a more in the wild-type background. This was also my chance to use some new fur brushes I downloaded on Photoshop. Sketched it out on textured paper, scanned and coloured on the fur, wasn't too happy with the lightness of the background, printed it and actually drew onto the print to darken the background (not my usual process!). Because of this method, I scanned it in again to show here and it will have affected the colouring.

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'Amur Leopard'

I think it was at Cotswold Wildlife Park where I saw this Amur leopard. It looks rather sad in this photo, and so also my drawing, and it makes me think about the fact that they are sadly endangered. Here's my picture as a bit of awareness, therefore, of this particular leopard. Leopards are supposed to be my favourite wild animal and so it was also about time I drew one again. Managed to keep it entirely traditional, which was nice for me and meant the textured paper wasn't then killed at the scanning stage. Textured, A4; used black pen, primarily, and some thicker lines with a felt tip, some shading with graphite pencil, and a bit of white chalk to highlight areas where the light shone (the chalk I wasn't sure about in the end, but once it was on there it was there). As with many pictures, background was altered a little to suit where I was going with the pic. I did dither quite a bit over the picture, not knowing where to go with it, whether to colour, whether to scan, etc., but I think it was happy staying black and 'white' in the end in this case. Scanned version.

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In other years I have kept meaning to take a photo of the pieces on display in the gallery, yet have not managed to do so...... however, this year I did. So here is proof of display! It's quite fun to see them in a bit of context, though you can't see much of the pictures around it.

 I may have forgotten something... will post again soon. Thanks for looking.

Quick Sketches And Life Drawing

I might have already posted these last year; probably should have checked... A few sketches that have been floating around on the computer for a while, which I thought I had better just get on and post as a breather between my more worked in to pictures.

As I have said before, and why I fear I might have already posted these, it is so good to have horses nearby to sketch for practice:

Even little monsters need to be purrfected with plenty of observational sketches... (What am I doing? I should be sketching monsters all the time!):

A teeny bit of life drawing I did near the end of last year. Always shows when I have gone long gaps between doing life drawing and I suffer a few frustrating false starts:

More to come.

Year Of The Dog

Should be a snow dog; what a snowy time we're having this beginning of March...

I don't celebrate the event of the Chinese New Year, but I'm certainly intrigued by the choice of animals for their Zodiac, and really wanted to do an Earth Dog picture this year. Previously I have done one for the Sheep, and then didn't quite get around to doing one for the Monkey or Rooster.

Drawn and outlined on A3 paper, scanned and digitally coloured. At first I misinterpreted the fact I'd seen a red dog image as meaning that it was a Fire Dog and gave the dog an 'aura' of flames. Discovering it was in fact an Earth Dog, I changed the aura to be more of a earthy, dust and dirt kind of glow! There's more dust and dirt collecting around him, as he brings forth his earthiness. I had a kind of idea how it should look and actually didn't quite follow through with it; certain colours were not working and so I took inspiration from how much red was used as a celebratory colour for YOTD. Thankfully, reddening (and pinking) the background, I feel, did my picture a favour; as did the texture - suits it so well. Unintentionally, it reminds me a bit of comic book-ish in appearance.

Exhibition is now over! More to come soon.