Peregrine drawing progress

i'm making slow but steady progress on my latest drawing,i'm happy with how the birds have worked out and so i'm on the home straight now with lots of rocks to complete.

Peregrine and crows drawing update

Once again I wait for my oil painting to dry and so ive moved back to my pencil drawing today and begun to work up the juvenile peregrine falcon in my scene.the feathers are particularly complicated and ensure slow progress but the bulk of the tricky plumage has now been accomplished.

Tiger underpainting complete

Today has been spent completing the underpainting of my Sumatran tiger painting.This is my favourite part of any oil painting as I get to work with bigger brushes and undiluted oil paint and really scrub paint into the canvas without worrying too much about the accuracy of the colours and dream that one day i'll master the art of painting loosely.once this has dried i'll make a start on the details.

Back to pencil for a day

whilst waiting for elements of my tiger painting to dry ive returned to my pencil drawing that's been waiting patiently for attention on the drawing board.both crows have now made an appearance and the next to be tackled will be the falcon and its prey.

Sumatran tiger painting

The first layer of oils has now been worked up on the cats body and now i'll move onto the underpainting stage of the head.

new projects underway

Ive two new projects underway right now.the first is a pencil drawing that may turn out to be a prelim for a full-size oil painting,just fancied trying it in graphite first.the drawing depicts a scene I came across a couple of years ago whilst walking along a beach at Minehead,UK.A juvenile peregrine had taken a rock dove and was busily plucking it on the beach,before too long it was joined by a crow who in turn was joined by another and so forth until the poor peregrine was surrounded by a murder of crows.despite the provocation and having to endure wing and tail feather pulling from the crows the falcon ate its fill before being driven off.fortunately I had my camera with me to record the events as it was too far away to see anything clearly with the naked eye and I think there will be a few images produced in oils and pencil of the encounter eventually.this drawing depicts the early part of the falcons encounter when there were just a couple of initial crows starting to get a little too close for comfort for the young bird.at this stage the falcon would occasionally abandon its prey in order to turn on its tormentors and drive them back a few feet.it was a really amazing event to witness and I hope the drawing will do it justice.
my second piece is an oil painting,itself a re-working of an earlier graphite drawing entitled Stealth,prints of which are still available from my website www.clivemeredithart.weebly.com .the big cat is a Sumatran tiger and like my previous cheetah painting the cat is looking very purposeful.the rather odd underpainting is as a result of originally planning a completely different subject on the canvas and starting that underpainting before I lost interest in the piece.

Cheetah 18" x 16" oil on canvas

Cheetah painting now complete,apologies for the terrible glare on the photo,cant seem to get a decent shot of this one.now onto new projects.

Cheetah painting update

after my week as artist in residence at Nature in Art last week ive been rushing around catching up with internet orders and answering a weeks worth of emails as well as returning all my stock of prints and cards etc into its rightful places.whilst I was in the studio at nature in art I was working on my cheetah oil painting and managed quite a bit of progress.there is still a little to do but mainly tinkering,glazing and a few alterations here and there.i took the unfinished painting to my bespoke framers yesterday for measurements to be taken and decisions made on the framing finish so that they could proceed with making and finishing the frame so that the painting could be rapidly fitted on completion as it is due to hang in an exhibition at the end of this month!.

Artist in residence

From 5th-11th august I will be the artist in residence at Nature in art  which is located in Gloucestershire at Wallsworth Hall,Twigworth,nr Gloucester. the museum is the uk's only museum dedicated to art portraying the natural world and I will be working on the painting of a cheetah above and drawing live in the garden studio.visitors will also be able to see a range of original works,prints and fine art cards as well as have a chat with me.in the meantime my publishing company Collier and Dobson ltd have a large stand at Gatcombe park,gloucestershire at the gatcombe international horse trials over the next three days displaying some of my original pieces and limited edition prints.