For now, I thought I'd post my tiger effort from a workshop I attended, hosted by another Frances - Frances Whitman - a very talented (recognised) traditional wildlife artist who fortunately lives quite locally. In this workshop we spent the equivalent of a working hour day, receiving helpful tips and guidance on creating realistic fur with particular Faber-Castell pencils on particular artists paper/card. Wow, getting shown how to properly make the art with proper materials was so invaluable; I was actually creating some art that for years I've wanted to, but never knew the best way, or had the right motivation, to start. Seriously, I will never attempt a decent arty picture on A4 printer paper again! (What was I ever thinking?) I am also working on a snow leopard and really hope to continue to make some more traditional realistic animals!
I fear I'm not articulating myself very well in this post as I've a lot to say, and have likely missed out a lot that I wanted, but to sum it up: workshop was well worth it, invaluable experience, enjoyable, I'm artistically on the right path at the moment.
Sorry; here's the tiger. It's not quite finished yet as there's a few pencils I'm lacking, but it's nearly there:
