Golden Retrievers finished

Cody
Copyright Laura Hardie 2009

After my usual tweaking of bits here and there and adding the final touches I’m now happy to call Cody finished. It’s been a while in the making but hopefully, after seeing both dogs together in the completed portrait, the wait has been worth it for their owner.

Gypsy and Cody
16x12 Coloured Pencil
Copyright Laura Hardie 2009

I’m taking time out from the drawing board for the next couple of weeks and giving my pencils a rest, as it is my ‘holidays’. Sadly I’m not going somewhere hot and exotic, or anywhere nice for that matter, just simply taking a break – we all need one now and then as I'm sure you'll agree. Not sure if I can call it a proper break though as I’m hoping to spend some time on the business side of things like marketing and updating my website – the kind of things that need doing but are always pushed to one side. I will of course be doing them at a leisurely pace, as it is my holidays after all.

More on the Golden Retrievers

A quick post to let you know that despite all the disruption I've had over the past two weeks I am still here busily working away on Cody, the second of my Golden Retrievers. And just to prove it here are a couple of progress shots.

Cody
A Work in Progress
Copyright Laura Hardie 2009

Getting there slowly but surely - another couple of days should see him finished.

Golden Retriever update

Gypsy
Copyright Laura Hardie 2009

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My lack of posts lately will tell you that I’m still not finding the time I’d like just now to work on the Retrievers but I have been picking up my pencils whenever I can - one of the big advantages of working with coloured pencils. Gypsy is now finished, or at least she is for now as I may well tweak bits here and there at the end.

Before I start a portrait I like to sit down with my reference photo, colour charts and pencils to pick out what I call my ‘basic palette’. This is quite simply the colours that I see in the fur and think would work. I always end up adding to this with more pencils as I work on the portrait and can easily end up with triple the amount I started out with. As a few people have asked me what colours I have used for Gypsy I thought I would show you the chart I have sitting on my drawing board next to my portrait (tidied up especially for my blog as it’s not normally so neat). This shows the colours I chose at the beginning and had next to me when I began the portrait. You should be able to click on the image to see it more clearly.

As I said earlier, I always end up adding pencils as I work my way through the portrait and it was no different with Gypsy. Other pencils I used were Putty Beige (Prismacolor); Bistre Bistre and Terracotta (FC Polychromos); Bistre, Taupe, Bronze, Ivory, Golden Brown, Vandyke Brown (Derwent Artist); French Grey 10% and 30% (Luminance). A limited palette really when I consider the amount of pencils I can sometimes end up with.