Tuesday, March 12, 2013

Been a while ...


Having a day of playing catch-up starting with my blog as it’s been a while since my last post. Life is still very much revolving around Bella in many ways. My vision of me at the drawing board with my adorable puppy napping peacefully at my feet while I worked was, I think, a bit naïve of me. Ok, obviously I knew it wouldn’t be quite like that, well for a good while anyway, but don’t think I was quite prepared for the force that is Bella, my headstrong, determined (oh how she is determined), beautiful girl.


Trying to work for any length of time was quickly becoming a distant memory for me with my ‘little bundle of joy’ demanding more and more of my time. It didn’t help that she had tummy problems for the first 3 weeks where my days more or less consisted of cleaning up poop 24/7 while in between I would be removing things from her mouth that shouldn’t  be there or removing her from no-go areas, that mainly being the couch ……… numerous times! My vocabulary was more or less ‘no’ and ‘leave it’ to the point I wondered if she maybe thought ‘No’ was her name! Glad to report she does respond to Bella and her recall is very good – we’ve been off lead a number of times now for a good run about and even played with other dogs and come back when called *proud mummy hat on* 


Hard work, headstrong, determined, naughty and mischevious she might be but she really is a good puppy and never fails to make me laugh.  Already I can see the amazing dog she will grow up to be and looking forward to all the fun times we’ll share. And of course I had to share a few of the many photos I have taken over the past 6 weeks.


I’m even getting more hours at the drawing board (yay:)) and finished my secret portrait, the one I can’t share quite yet as it’s to be a surprise for someone, and this carbon pencil drawing of a Lab I started back in January.


Approx. 10''x 8''
Carbon Pencils on Fabriano 5
Original available
Copyright Laura Hardie 2013

It’s been a good few years since I’ve used carbon pencils and I do like them just not as much as graphite. They are a lot quicker to work with which I like a LOT, completing this drawing in almost half the time I would had it been in graphite. Think I’d like to do a lot more sketches using the carbon pencils ….. that’s my plan anyway.



7 comments:

Sue Clinker said...

Bella is just gorgeous and very intelligent looking. Thanks for sharing the photos.

We're off to Fuerteventura tomorrow and I'm toying with taking the graphite lab drawing with me which I started last time we were there. Its just sat on the shelf, half finished, since we got back to England. working in graphite is slow going as you say.

Another time I'll take carbon pencils out with me. Is it the Conte carbons you used for this? You've certainly achieved a lovely dark coat - beautiful drawing (as ever)!

Peggy said...

Bella really does look like a "bundle of joy" and also pure muscle! What a gorgeous girl :)
I've never used Carbon pencils. They sure look like they achieve that illusive black tones better!
Beautiful drawing!

Laura said...

Hi Sue, I used the Wolff carbon pencils for this drawing - I have the Conte and would have gone with these had they not been too big for my sharpner! There are more grades in the Conte pencils which I liked.

Think you should take both your graphite lab drawing and some carbon pencils just in case you feel the urge to have a scribble with them ;-)

Hope you have a lovely holiday and so jealous of you escaping all this awful weather we're having. I need some sun and blue skys x

Laura said...

Hi Peggy, thank you, she really is a joy to have and feel lucky to have her :) Would definitely recommend you having a go with carbon pencils if you can. You do get darker blacks with them and at a quicker rate than you would with graphite - no need to layer as much x

Anonymous said...

Bella is so adorable!! Enjoy every minute with her.

Karen Middleton said...

Oh gosh soooo cute!! When I had my cat, his favourite seat was my drawing board chair, so I would draw standing up rather than remove him.

A previous cat would sit on my lap while I painted - you jsut never know what you're going to get with pets, but always such a joy.

Thanks for sharing!!

Pepe said...

Eres , se te nota el cariño que sientes por los animales, te felicitouna gran artista