It's finished!! Here is the completed drawing of "Flint", hope you like it Donna! You should be able to click the above photo for an enlarged view. Aha! As I type, Sarah (who commissioned me to draw this for her friend, Donna) has sent me some photos of the picture in the frame she bought. Here it is (I'm promised a pic of it mounted on the wall soon, and will share when that arrives).

Sarah sent me a text over the weekend that read as follows:- "I gave Donna the picture last night as I couldn't wait. She instantly cried as she was so happy with it and knew it was Flint the minute she saw it. She said it looks just like him.". Sarah also told me that Donna's parents were moved when they saw the drawing and spent quite a while comparing it to photos of Flint and commenting on how accurate it is.

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I have another commission coming up; a much more challenging drawing! Details on that to follow.

Pastels, pets, portraits

• I've been delighted recently, to receive a few commissions for pet portraits; two of which came directly from this blog! It's given my confidence a huge boost :o)
• This Portrait, however, came from family. Adam's little brother's girlfriend (keeping up?), Sarah, asked me a few weeks ago if I would consider drawing a portrait of her friend's dog, called Flint. Sadly Flint passed away (at a ripe old age) and Sarah felt that a portrait of him would be a nice gift for his owner. Sarah presented me with a small, dogeared photograph that she had "borrowed" from her friend's house; I had to scan it and get it back to her asap so she could smuggle it back in, hehe!
• Now, firstly I'll point out that I don't know Sarah's friend and she doesn't know me (other than a passing face at the family BBQs), so I feel happy that I can blog about this without her finding out.
• Secondly, I have to comment on how lovely this dog is - as soon as I saw the picture of him I was in love. He's a German Shepherd dog (I believe) but is a gorgeous golden colour. The colours in his coat, and the lovely way his fur flows meant this was a fantastic portrait to take on, especially as I'm still finding my way in this field.
• And thirdly, I have to express my complete surprise at how this small 5"x3" photo, taken a number of years ago (when Flint was in his prime) and in a rather sorry state, enlarged - I was amazed with how much detail was in that tiny photograph! I scanned it in at 1200dpi and have enlarged it to A3 (16"x11" I think) with virtually no quality loss! I've no idea what kind of megapixel digital camera would be required to reproduce such detail!

And this is the same scan at after I was done fixing it up. I'm easily distracted and was finding the scuffs getting in the way of my "seeing" the dog, so I patched it up - which has quite conveniently made for another gift for Sarah's friend should she like to have a larger copy of her photo. Again, this image was reduced in size to blog, but I think you can get the idea.

As I've managed to get this far without actually sharing in-progress photos, here are two; this one was from last week. I have "discovered" pastels with this portrait - after the recent drawing I did of the Border Collie using normal pencil crayons on a dark packground, I was quite wary of "losing" the portrait. I don't know how to explain this, but if you compare pencil crayon drawings with pastel ones, especially on darker paper, the pastel ones seem to "glow" somehow. This in mind, I chose to try pastels for this portrait and at least block in the colour using them.

I was really pleased with the results using the pastels, and after having a few hours over the weekend and today's lunchbreak at work (have I mentioned how lovely my boss is...?) to spend working on the drawing; here's the results at this point.

I think I will be returning to the normal pencil crayons soon with this one; I just can't get the fine detail that I'm so obsessed with (hey, I'm a Virgo, what can I do??) using pastels alone. So, in true experimental fashion I'll be giving the pencil crayons a go, in the hope that this lovely "glow" I've managed to stumble on using the pastels will remain, whilst still allowing me to add in the fine details that I love. I'm mildly concerned that I may overwork this portrait, but I won't know unless I try, and the pad i'm using has 24 sheets in it, so if I truly stuff it up, I can happily re-do it. I have until Christmas, that's ages, right?...

I just have to add in this photo, of Deeley (the "other" cat) helping me! I think perhaps she'd prefer it if I kept to drawing cats!! Or maybe she's just reminding me that I've not done HER portrait yet, hehe!

Edible delights all everywhere I looked!

• Sometimes, you just CANNOT be good. However well-intentioned you are (which to be honest, I'm not very!) sometimes you just find yourself surrounded by edible delights that are just so indulgent, you just have to throw conscience to the wind and enjoy them!
• Last weekend was one of those times. On Friday I went to visit my friend Emily Prouse. She's one of the "ones-to-watch" in this hobby, her finishwork is incredible and her re-scuplting is showing great promise. She's still at school so when I go to visit her, I also get to meet up with her parents, who are two of the most creative and inspirational people I know - I can easily see how Emily has become such a talent!
• Anyway, on Friday I made a quick visit to say hi and to pick up a gorgeous painted copy of Pickle V2 that Emily kindly offered to paint as a 30th Birthday gift to me! We had talked about colours and as I already have a gray copy and a deep bay pinto copy, and as Mulberry gray is practically unheard of in Arab horses; Emily painted this copy to a beautifully rich, colourful Rose Gray. In this photo the eyes aren't glossed but I can vouch for their quality (Emily does FANTASTIC eyes!) and there is also a multitude of little hair-details that you can't even see in the photo.
• THANK YOU Emily, this is a super-special model that I will cherish! :o)

• Whilst visiting Emily, it was a lovely surprise to find that her Mom had baked a cake for my visit - how lovely is that?! This cake, my, oh my, this cake... well, the photo below should show just how gorgeously indulgently FABULOUS this cake was - we each had a more-than-generous slice topped with vanilla ice-cream, mmmmm!!! Just look at that steam, fresh from the oven gooey richness.
• You know you have a great friend when they know just what level of indulgence to offer (in my case - EXTREME!)!!

Now, on to something not edible, but generally food-based. Now I know I'm late here, but that's the story of my life (living a few paces behind the rest of the world!). I've never carved a pumpkin before - now I know I was a week late with this one, but we'd bought it ready for Guy-Fawkes but not had a chance to carve it; we had a big fireworks bach over the weekend at Adam's parents' house so I took the opportunity and carved this guy - he's munching a cucumber end. I was quite pleased for a first attempt! I also found it very therapeutic, but perhaps that's my Savage side coming out...!

The final icing on the cake, so to speak, came not from me, but from Adam - he's a bit handy in the kitchen when we're not restricted to dinner "a-la-ding", and he fancied making some home-made marshmallows for the family event. Ok, they may not look as neat and tidy as the supermarket types, but that just added to the home-made speciality of them and they tasted great!! This plate-full was kept back and we brought it home, and during this week (we're only on Wednesday!!) the marshmallows have steadily disappeared - now I know I didn't eat ALL of them... ;o)

Back to more artistic endeavours next time, I just felt I had to share in these delights!