On the drawing board

Zara
21cm x27cm, Coloured Pencil
Copyright Laura Hardie 2009

I work from photos (as if you hadn’t guessed:)) – I have to as I've yet to come across a dog, or any animal for that matter, who will happily pose for up to 30 hours or more while I complete their portrait. But I have to admit to being very particular when it comes to choosing those that I will work from, as I’m sure those who have worked with me in the past will testify. I’m not saying I haven’t worked with bad photos because I have, many in fact when I first started out, but ultimately this shows in the finished portrait hence my ‘fussiness’ and insistence on good photos to start with.

This week I had planned to start a portrait of four Collies but on printing out the agreed reference photos I really wasn’t completely happy with two of them so decided to ask for more. I do find it hard if I continually have to ask for more photos when they’re unsuitable – I almost feel as if I’m being a pain – but it’s so important to get this stage right and hopefully the finished portrait makes all the extra effort worthwhile.

So with the Collie portrait on hold until next week I had the chance to work on my own portfolio, which I’m slowly trying to build up between commissioned pieces, but was disappointed to get next to nothing done – too much procrastinating and not enough action. I had the perfect opportunity too as my daughter was off to London on a school trip for the week giving me plenty of me time. Sadly the only thing I managed to do was to finish the above drawing of Zara. I started this back in February and you can see a couple of work in progress shots here and here.

At this stage I’m undecided what to call this piece but I do have a few ideas running round my head that I’ll no doubt spend some time pondering over.

Day at the Races

With summer now here (although at times I find it hard to believe) I find myself out and about more often with my camera looking for some good reference material to work from. Right now I’m drawn to horses - just love them - so took myself off to the races yesterday at Musselburgh and spent a couple of hours happily snapping away at the horses in the parade ring before they were taken off to the course.

I’d have loved to have come away with some racing shots but couldn’t get a good enough position near to the track to take them from, plus I really don’t think my lens was up to the job – not if going by some I saw, they were huge and I mean HUGE.

I can't complain though as I came away with near enough 300 photos – whoever came up with the idea for the digital camera deserves a medal. There should be more than one or two in there that I can use, despite some annoying problems I seem to be experiencing with my camera.