Pet Portraits and Wildlife Art

This is Jimmy's portrait almost finished now. This is to be framed so I may have to remove add some of the cushion to fit it nicely into a mount and frame. It is pretty awful trying to take photos with the poor lighting (I know I keep on about it) but my new daylight bulb isn't really too good. I did have a rather expensive one before which I managed to smash with my head when I leant over to pick up something and ended up with bits in my hair so I bought another version but they aren't a patch on the first type so now I have an internet search on to get the same brand again!

Talking of art problems, my electric pencil sharpener has just about bitten the dust, I stupidly decided to sharpen a pastel pencil and it just destroyed it. oh well more shopping to do! And as I'm online I may as well order some replacement pencils, this ingres paper is eating up my pencils so fast I'm reduced to stubs of some!!!

I've also made a fantastic start with Bonnie's portrait and provided the light is better than today, I should be able to post an update tomorrow (I may well post a quick update on Facebook so do look on there if you want a sneak preview)

In keeping with most other people already this year, my New Year's resolutions have already been dismissed (good job there's the rest of the year to try again then) but as per my last post, I said I'd try new mediums. So off I trotted to the virtual art shops and bought myself some pastel paper. I thought this would be the best way to break myself in, pastels are probably the most similar medium to pencils, non liquid, and handled in the same way so in my mind a good place to start.

So I have my pastel paper in front of me, I look at my pastels, look back at the pencils, look at the pastels again, push them to one side and grab my pencils. I thought it would be a change just to have a coloured background and I've never used such a toothy paper so in my opinion, almost half way to my first New Year's resolution (what a cop out I hear you cry, well yes it is in a word!)

However, my little cowardly steps have made me realise that this paper is just amazing for pencils, it's also quicker to work with as the base colour is already in place and although I am able to add more layers because of the surface, I don't need to add as many anyway and I'm going great guns. Jimmy is appearing on the page at a rate of knots. So I'm actually quite pleased with myself for discovering this and I'm sure I will be trying this again.

So, a little about Jimmy, my most unusual pet portrait to date (I think he beat the cows). Jimmy was found wandering down a road and duly rescued. Found posters did not lead to his owners coming forward so he remained with his rescuers. It turned out on the same day another ferret was rescued but a third more unfortunate creature was hit by a car.

So Jimmy was a very lucky little ferret who became a bit of a house pet. His mum had to tape cupboards shut when he was about and he had a lovely little habit of stealing and helping himself to things and hiding them all over the place!