Friday 25 July 2014

up date on dog portrait

after a particularly hot few days in the studio this is how my commissioned work looks tonight.the drawing had reached the stage where it required layers of background toning to be applied to help the viewer make sense of the slightly unusual viewpoint and make the 'white' dog stand out from the paper.this stage is where true grit is required for me as there's no quick way to lay in the tone other than laying down the graphite in successive layers using lightly applied overlapping circles of graphite time and time again.it is ,frankly,mind-numbingly boring and repetitive and extremely tiring mentally whilst causing my back no end of trouble from motionless hour after hour but ive yet to find another way that gives me the level of finish I require.there is still much to do but I hope youll agree that some perspective has been created by the addition of he shadow and toning.work will re-start on the dog next working on shadow and highlights and hopefully the whole thing will knit together well and shadows look more realistic.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Those precise layers of graphite, slowly and painstakingly applied... are the very thing that make people say in disbelief... "Wow, you did this with pencil?" But few of them make the connection that it is that persevering attitude which makes all the difference, in art or anything else! The dog is looking awesome! Can't wait to see it finished!

Kathryn Hansen said...

oh, he is looking SO good! And boy do I hear you about the monotony of layering backgrounds...ugh!!

Unknown said...

Katherine and Kathryn,thankyou both very much,you are both very obviously familiar with the trials and tribulations of the medium!