Crown Prince

Crown Prince

9x5 inches

Scratch art, inktense pencil and coloured pencil on Ampersand Scratchbord

 

I have always had a bit of a love affair with peacocks and have used them several times in my art, but this time thought I would focus on the detail in their magnificent heads and crest. One of the things I love about scratchboard is that it really allows you to get a sense of the texture and 3D nature of the subject you are working on, which somehow makes the later addition of colour all the more interesting and exciting, almost like painting a sculpture. Many people have asked me to create a tutorial on colouring scratchboard pieces. At this stage, I still feel like I am refining my technique and need to create a few more before I can confidently pass on the way I scratch and colour but if you are interested in a tutorial, then watch this space - it won't be too far away :)

Adonis

Adonis

A3 (12x16 inches)

Coloured pencil and Pan Pastels on black Mat Board

This artwork was done just for fun because I am enjoying experimenting with coloured pencils on black mat board and am loving some of the effects that can be achieved. Only problem is that I find the darker backgrounds much harder to scan, particularly when you have to stitch scans together as I had to in this case. I am going to take a week off from art now as we have family arriving at the end of the week, so cleaning and tidying is on the agenda and hopefully catching up on some internet correspondence. I wonder if many of you find as I do, that once caught up doing art, (apart from all the other things that call on our time), there is very little time left over for browsing all the beautiful artworks that everyone else has been creating. It's nice to take stock and have a breather every now and then and just appreciate the beauty and creativity of other people's work and I also find that it spurs me on and inspires me to improve and be more creative myself. So looking forward to catching up on all of that this week! :)

Casanova II

Casanova II

10x14 inches

Acrylics on Canson Mi-Teintes Tex Paper

What a marathon week. This painting took much longer than I had anticipated and what a joy to finally complete it!!! I really wasn't blessed with the patience to work on projects that take longer than a day or two. I remember the first time I painted this peacock a few years ago, that it took me 3 months to complete and I was so over it by the end. But I have a special passion for peacocks and wanted to challenge myself to paint a larger piece.

Apart from that we found our darling pet dog Chelsea (Chinese Crested Powder Puff) dragging her hind legs on Wednesday night and discovered she has slipped a disc in her spine which has left her partially paralysed. Hopefully with anti-inflammatories and by keeping the poor thing caged for the next month or two, her spine will heal and she will get back full mobility. She looks at me with such sad eyes through her cage - I think she feels she is being punished for something and my heart goes out to her. Animals are so much more resilient than people.

With all this and the mother of a dear friend dying suddenly, I know I am sadly behind on my blogging, but hope to catch up in the next few days. Happy Father's day to all the Dad's out there for tomorrow (although I think some of you in the US etc. celebrate Father's day at a different time of year) and will check out all your blogs soon :))