A Trio of Greys

This morning I delivered three greyhound portraits to a client who also happens to run the Greyhound Friends for Life (GFFL)'s rescue facility in Auburn, CA. The facility is wonderful and they've improved it further since I was last there. It's not open to the public, but they usually have an open house or play day a couple of times a year - check the events calendar for dates. Of course, if you're interested in adopting a wonderful greyhound (or grey/sighthound mix) they have some really nice dogs available there or at other GFFL facilities.

Each portrait is 8" x 8" in watercolor on Yupo, with a little bit of color pencil. The color schemes were chosen to work together - I used shades of purple as a unifying color for the dogs' darkest areas. The body colors - yellow, blue or orange - are what the client selected to match each dog's personality. The backgrounds all have blue in them and two of them have green in varying amounts. I took photos of the paintings at various stages of progress.


"Swaps" - finished portrait


"Swaps" - reference photo


This is over halfway done. The background and ears are finished and I've blocked in the colors of the dog, but need to work on the blending of the brindle pattern and add detail.



I've blended most of the brindle pattern by pushing paint around, lifting it and adding more of both purple, yellow and orange. The arrow points to an area that still needs work.



"Lulu" - finished portrait


"Lulu" - reference photo


Here I've done the background and have blocked in most of the purple areas. The ears are mostly finished. The white area is the unpainted Yupo.



Nearing completion, but still need to add detail and more blue in her face.



A detail of the finished portrait. Some of the small, fine marks around her eye are color pencil.



"Ace" - finished portrait


"Ace" - reference photo

I posted in progress photos and details of Ace's portrait last year, see them here.

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River Otter Illustration

Staff at the Sacramento Zoo commissioned this drawing of a river otter and I finished it last week. Earlier this year, the Zoo had commissioned otters on ostrich eggs for their annual golf tournament. The eggs are given as awards at the tourney. One of the Zoo goals this year is to raise funds to enhance the existing otter habitat, so otters were the critter of choice for that fund-raising event. The drawing will be used on note cards that staff will send to select recipients.

The drawing measures approx. 5.5" x 8". This is one of the few ink drawings that isn't on scratchboard. I drew this on smooth Bristol (a heavy paper) with black Micron pens in two sizes (.20 & .25 mm).



These are the ostrich eggs for the Golf Tournament. I use India ink in Rapidograph technical pens for these drawings. Visit this page of my web site for more ostrich egg art.

The reference photo I used was provided by the San Francisco Zoo. Staff at the Sacramento Zoo got permission for me to use it.


Here's a detail of the drawing:
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The original has sold - I'll donate a portion of the proceeds to the Sacramento and San Francisco Zoos.

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Horse Portrait in Progress

I'm working on this pencil drawing of a Mustang mare, Kallie. This is just a photo, not a good scan, so the tones aren't quite right and the corners are dark, but it's enough to show how it's coming along. A grey scale version of the reference photo is below it. It's the best photo I have to work from, since dear Kallie has passed, but I was able to pull out some of the detail in Photoshop and I have other reference photos of horses' heads at that angle to fill in the blanks. Kallie's lower lip was hanging down, so with the owner's approval, I've closed her mouth in the portrait. I've also taken out the halter and tidied up her mane.





I usually have a couple of portraits/projects going on at once. For portraits that don't require paint (pencil, color pencil, scratchboard) I usually work on them while sitting on the couch (my secondary studio) while watching TV in the evening. The projects that require paint have to be done in my office/studio at the work table. Earlier today, I was working on a watercolor portrait of a black standard poodle. It's not much to look at yet, so I don't have a photo to post.

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Warning - Extreme Cuteness Ahead!

You may have noticed there aren't a lot of cat photos on my blog. That's because I'm allergic to cats, so I just don't spend as much time around them as I do with dogs or other critters, which limits the feline photo opps. I can be around cats for a while, but I have to be really careful not to touch my face after I've petted them (and to wash my hands when I'm done petting). There's just no way I can visit with our feline friends without petting them, so I just have to be careful and limit my exposure. I really like cats and find them fascinating - if it weren't for the allergies (John's allergic too, even worse than I am), I'd have at least one cat of my own.

Today though, I had a donation to drop off at FieldHaven Feline Rescue and I took my camera with me. I visit FieldHaven on occasion and they always have a nice assortment of wonderful, photogenic cats. I knew that they took in some teeny kittens recently (read the story here) and hoped to get some photos of them as well. I wasn't denied! I'll start out with a few cat photos so you can work up to the super cute kittens at the end. There were a couple of dogs there today too, one of the volunteers brought hers along to help socialize the cats. The dogs were very well behaved and most of the cats didn't seem to mind their presence.











OK, you were warned!! Here are the kittens!!





If you'd like to help support FieldHaven's efforts, you can make a donation on their web site or perhaps attend their upcoming fund-raising event in September: "Classics, Cats & Cabernet". I've donated a framed painting of a Sphynx cat to the event.

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