Pet Portraits and Wildlife Art

A few more pics of the horse portrait, things are going great guns with this one as you can see. I've completed the background with black pastel and charcoal and then fixed it with spray. All that is left to do is the neck (all I say, it's probably the same amount of work again due to the muscles, shine and tone of Roli's neck)

Also I have been busy with the sprocker and child portrait in graphite pencils, so far I have the main of the child down but I will need to revisit for more shading and blending at a later stage.

All in all a very busy evening and quite productive. Sometimes it's a shame I have to go to my day job!!! Talking of which we were marking douglas fir trees on the same steep bank as yesterday but as it was reasonably dry today I managed to remain upright, I think I need ropes to tie myself to the trees to hoist myself up and lower myself down like abseiling!!! It really makes my legs ache so I presume it must be quite good exercise, a little compensation I suppose. Luckily there is a small cafe near Hopewell Colliery, a visitor centre where tourists can visit an underground mine and see how it worked, see the pics below of the old mine workings.