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.

All done

Charlie
16x12 Pencil on paper
Copyright Laura Hardie 2009

It never ceases to amaze me just how time consuming all those ‘little jobs’ that need doing can be. Visits to the framers for mounts, wrapping portraits for posting, printing photos, paperwork, updating website, etc, etc – all need doing but is time spent away from the drawing board. My time planned with my camera and photographing artwork didn’t happen unfortunately but it will get done, and soon.

I did manage to finish my portrait of Charlie and get a scan I am happy with thanks to pencil artist Grahame Butler (thank you), who left a very helpful Photoshop step-by-step on my last post on how to get that background white without affecting the drawing. This is definitely a great starting point and something I can play around with and expand on in the future.

Pencils used in this portrait, for those who are interested, were Staedtler Mars Lumograph in grades 4H, 2H, H, B, 2B and 3B.

Nearly there

Charlie
A Work in Progress
Copyright Laura Hardie 2009

Not much more to go now but thought I would show another work in progress stage before unveiling the completed portrait which, all going well, should be finished tomorrow.

The more I look at this scanned image and those on my website (some of which are terrible) the more determined I am to find out how to get good photos, or scans, of graphite pencil drawings. Surely there is a way that isn’t too technical for me to deal with.

I like to keep a record of every drawing or painting that I do and that includes a good copy of the original, either scanned or photographed, which can be used on such things as my website, for advertising and marketing purposes, for exhibition entries or to be turned into prints. The image therefore needs to be true to the original in colour and detail and while I do need to work on photographing artwork as a whole I feel I fall way short when it comes to my graphite drawings. A bad scan or photo isn’t helping me and doesn’t show my work to it’s best potential.

So with the above in mind I’m going to dedicate a couple of days playing with my camera first and seeing what I come up with. I can’t help feeling that a lot of the work will need to be done in Photoshop – my Achilles heel – in which case it could take a lot longer than a couple of days to get right. My main problem, as I see it, are the white backgrounds that are a feature in the majority of my drawings and getting the camera or scanner to keep them white while keeping everything else in the drawing correct and true to the original. Large white areas can confuse the camera – not sure what happens with the scanner – and it should just be a case of getting the right exposure and light to take the photo in. Right?

I can tell this could take quite a while so any helpful advice would be gratefully received. And of course anything I learn on this journey will be shared here for all to see.

A quick update

Charlie
A Work in Progress
Copyright Laura Hardie 2009

Just popping in to show you more of Charlie and what stage he is at. As you can see he’s slowly coming together

German Shepherd

Charlie
A Work in Progress
Copyright Laura Hardie 2009

For some reason or other I had it in my head that entries for the UKCPS Open International Exhibition 2009 had to be in by the end of March so have spent the past week panicking because I hadn’t started anything for it. Each year I promise myself that I’ll enter something to this exhibition but never do, mainly because I haven’t drawn something I've considered good enough. So you can imagine how relieved I was to find it was in fact the end of June – 24th to be exact – that entries had to be in by. Panic over for now.

I did find the time to start a new coloured pencil drawing that may or may not end up being submitted that I will continue to work on in between my commissions.

For now though I am working on a graphite pencil portrait of a German Shepherd called Charlie. I love my coloured pencils but love graphite just as much, if not (slightly) more. What I don’t like about graphite is being unable to get a good enough scan or photograph of the finished drawing. So much of the detail is lost and the support always ends up looking grey when it should be white. I do intend to play more with my camera to see if I can get better results with that but until then this is the best I can do with my scanner. At least you get the idea.

Black Lab - WIP 2

You saw Audley come together in my last post, so now some progress shots of his other half, Lola.

There’s not much left to do now – just Lola’s mouth and collar plus touch ups here and there and it should be finished.

Border Collie Montage - a WIP continued

Work on the Border Collie montage continues, albeit slowly – I say slowly as it is taking a lot longer to finish than I’d planned with just under 75 hours spent on it so far. The dogs are almost finished, just need to work on the legs and white areas of fur on the sitting dogs as well as the inevitable touch ups here and there.

That just leaves the background to do, with all those greens (sigh). I know how I want to go with this and how I want it to look but somehow I don’t think my vision will materialise onto paper if I jump in and do this straight away. So I'm putting it to one side for a couple of days to go back to it with fresh eyes but also to give me time to play around with my paints and pencils and see what different shades of green I can mix - I prefer to mix/blend colours where possible as green straight from the tube can be too bright and garish, not what I am after. Lots of grass studies as well I think before I move on to the montage.

German Shepherd in pastels

This week I've put my pencils, and horses, to one side and got messy with pastels. The mess I get in isn't a problem, it's the dust they create I'm not overly fond of.

The reason for bringing my pastels out was to do my latest commission - a beautiful German Shepherd by the name of Tango. I loved the photos I was sent of him - so full of character.

Here are a couple of 'in-progress' shots and a 'where I am at now' one. All going well, I hope to have him finished and at my framers by the end of the week.