Work in progress, toddler

Just started this, Toddler sitting engrossed with....er something she's holding. Light is from a large window behind so very strongly backlit. Soft pastels (will be anyway) on A3 Pastel paper,
First stage is drawn with 2H pencil.

































First blocking in of colour.































Fixed, and a some detail on the background, hat & face.

Struggling a bit with my current set of pastels. WH Smith 'soft' pastels but they're not that soft at all, small square profile sticks (look more like hard pastels to me) they don't layer up at all well and some have hard bits in them that do.....well..nothing except scratch on the paper.
Really looking forward to my set of conte soft pastels arriving.




Progress last night, more detail and deapth of colour built up, can't lay much pigment on with my current pastels so fixed again. Starting to shape up quite nicely I think, we'll see what this evening brings.

Starting to get the contrast from the strong backlight, not happy with the left hand.
Just about finished I think, Still not entirely happy with the left hand & arm....and the highlight on the cushion seems a bit too much.....Hmmm....continue or not?.....

Shanty Life

This is inside Gun Hill Shanty, a wee place up in what was a farm called Little Chartres, now Philomel Farm. Andy is sitting reading on a low seat lit from his right but also backlit by the window behind, it was a nice photo that I have wanted to sketch for a while. Oil pastels on grey pastel paper.

Oil pastel doodle

Well, had a visit from my ma Griz yesterday and she presented me with a selection of oil pastels (I'd mentioned I wanted to try them), got doodling with them an ended up with this:





























Pretty mad eh?, Griz by the way is a skillful artist who also lives on West Falkland just up the road at Chartres, here is some of her recent work that she recently posted on Artforum.co.uk, location is Surf Bay near Stanley on East Falkland:
Clicky

Mr Rochester

Did this as a bit of portrait practice, soft pastel & charcoal sketch of the tragic Jane Eyre character Mr Rochester played by Toby Stephens. I've been finding that my drawing is getting a bit pernickety so my intent was to loosen it up a bit and have a go at doing some long hair. I am quite pleased with it, not a particularly good likeness but I feel it captures something of the character.

Artforums.co.uk

There's a monthly portrait challenge on the Artforums website that's been good fun and good practice.
Here's a link to one of them

I had a go at a few of them:














Great fun.

First 'proper' drawing

Finished this portrait of my dog Boom yesterday, my first proper drawing. It's interesting to try to define what is 'proper', a certain discipline adhered to maybe, your first commissioned piece perhaps. In this case this is the first work I've completed with my new arsenal of materials, up until now anything I've done has been compromised (at least in my head anyway) by using improvised mediums 'oh that would have worked better if I had such & such a thing' and 'I just didn't try that hard because these pencils aren't up to it' and so on. Now I've nowhere to hide, this is the first time I've given it everything I've got.
Whilst working on this I was aware that at any point this was the best I can do at the moment, if it goes completely pear-shaped it's no fault of the materials or that I was not really trying, the weaknesses in the finished piece are the weaknesses in my technique and vision as an artist.
I learnt a lot from producing this modest piece of work, now it's done I feel I've taken a step forward, some uncertainties are how just behind me and the obstacles ahead are clearer and more challenging, onwards.