Pet Portraits and Wildlife Art

I am now concentrating on Mickey the springer spaniel, so far I have used only 4 pencils to get this far, chocolate, burnt umber, bistre and terracotta. I will need to revisit and add lowlights as I progress to give more depth to the portrait but at present this will give the impression of shape and colouring in a basic form. There is a lot more work to do, especially on the ear, which is too light at the moment but it is easier to add darker colours as the portrait continues rather than try to add lighter colours.

Springers are my favourite breed of dog as I have my own and my Dad had a succession of them, each proved child friendly putting up with my dressing them up and sleeping on them, poor old Duke, a real kid's dog, was forever in hats and sunglasses but was my pillow when I was very small. He was a shooting dog but would happily play in the garden with our pet rabbit and me without incident for years.

I've also been looking at the voting so far for my Pencil Portraits from Photos Competition and things are really heating up, there's still some time to go before the voting ends so it's still all to fight for. The voting has brought a myriad of visitors to my site so I will definitely be running it again, if you have a favourite image, dig it out and get ready for the next competition. I think next time I will be a little more restrictive in the type of entries I would like and keep it to pets but also allow a longer entry time so more people can enter.

Anyway back on the farm... it's bathtime!!!