Thursday, July 02, 2009

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.

10 comments:

Amanda said...

Hello!
I found you through other blogs.
What a sweet golden boy. I'll get another one when I'm big, I am 10 years now, And imorrgon July 3, I am 11 * hihi * I get it from immorn about 5 years,
it is my favorite dog.

Amanda

Unknown said...

Laura,
This is absolutely beautiful! What a fantastic job you have done. You've captured her "confidence" perfectly (I can't tell you how many pictures I have of her where she's looking dead center at the camera). Can't wait to see Cody!
Laura

Mona Diane Conner said...

Gypsy looks great. Thanks for sharing the pencil list you used for this one, it's amazing to see that all these subtle colors went into this portrait.

Laura said...

Hello Amanda and welcome to my blog:)He is a gorgeous dog isn't he and I can understand why you like this breed so much.

Hi Laura:) Excellent, I'm so pleased you are happy with how I have captured Gypsy - it's always good to hear the owners opinion on progress:) I've made a start on Cody and he should be on my blog over the next couple of days.

Gillian McMurray said...

Gypsy is beautiful - very regal. I love the idea of the colour chart. Being new to colour pencils I'm never sure if I am picking the right colour until I put them down on the paper.

Arti said...

what a sweet portrait ...and so well done! Geat work, Laura, nice to meet you.

Laura said...

Hi Mona, Looks like we posted at the same time and therefore missed you:) It always interests me what colours other artists use in a piece so hopefully my colour chart will be of interest to someone:)

Thank you Gillian, she does have a regal feel about her doesn't she:)

I'm glad you like the idea of a colour chart - makes working on the portrait that bit easier having all your chosen colours beside you. Another good idea is to keep them for future reference to refer back to.

Thank you Arti, and welcome to my blog:)

Sally McLean said...

Very beautiful as usual with all that very lifelike wonderfully soft fur!!

Laura said...

Thank you Sally:)

Louisette passion retriever, cat, memory Katanga said...

Wonderfull sweet portrait.
Greeting from Belgium
Louisette +2 golden
http://blog.seniorennet. be/lousette/