Roe deer study work in progress

Here's another oil painting i'm working on right now and its a study of one of the many Roe deer who visit my garden for a tasty morsel every so often.its been quite heavily re-worked since I initially underpainted it,with three changes of background colouration ranging from hideous greens through to the current grey-ish colour.whilst the photography doesn't really show it too well here the current colouration is made up of colours I saw within the deers coat and whilst its a little plainer overall than I had anticipated I think the colour sets off the deer nicely.as you can see the animals head is almost complete,i just need to tinker with the nose some more.the body has had two coats of loosely applied oils and the next coat will add some nice fur detail in.all the references ive used for this painting have been gleaned by me doing a little amateur deer stalking in my own garden(luckily theres plenty of cover) and as you can see from the positioning of her ears she was desperately trying to work out where the camera clicks were coming from!

Cats Protection 'Celebrity paw'

Cat welfare charity  Cats Protection hold an annual 'Celebrity Paws' auction to raise funds for feline welfare.Celebritys are asked to draw around there hand and then personalise it in any way,the resultant 'paws' are then entered into an online auction to help with fundraising.Previous celebrity participants have included ricky gervais,dame Maggie smith,hugh Bonneville,phil Collins and tracey emin and so imagine how delighted I was to be asked to produce my own celebrity paw, the image above is my effort for the auction.

Cape Buffalo 22" x 36" oil on canvas

I'm still struggling a little to get a decent photo of my buffalo painting in the studio and so here is my best effort so far.The painting is actually a good deal darker with more colour too but i'm a useless photographer and the light is bouncing everywhere in the studio.It will sit here to dry now and i'll take another look in a few days for areas that cry out for change but for now i'm happy with it.It is an unashamedly simple piece concentrating purely on the ruggedness of the animals head and horns and attempting to put across something of the nonchalance of an animal that has few things to worry about. The painting is one of my largest to date and I enjoyed working at this scale as I felt it allowed me a slightly looser approach which was very therapeutic and despite my next project being smaller scale I think I will be returning to large paintings soon.

mr grumpy taking shape

my cape buffalo painting is really starting to come together nicely now after another long day in the studio working on its face and shiny nose.it looks a little disproportionately bright in places in this photo as I took it whilst the painting was still very wet,the colours will settle down overnight.the next part will be to try and do justice to the wonderfully textured horns.

Cape Buffalo painting progression

I started out on this large painting with a view to going completely over the top with the amount of details but having got to grips with it ive been enjoying working a little more loosely.this is the first painting that ive used my new Michael harding oil paints exclusively on and ive got to say what lovely oils they are to work with.ive more or less completed the body and ears of the beast and next comes the really interesting part,the face and horns.this will obviously be the main focal point of the painting and so the details will be a little tighter here but my main focus with the painting has changed from being all about detail to being more about creating an impact with the scale of the painting which measures 36" in width.

big grumpy taking shape

This is the first of several new images taking shape on the easel.this is the completed underpainting for my cape buffalo study.this has now been put aside to dry whilst I work up the next underpainting,this time its a roe deer portrait.