What's on my drawing board

Started this drawing today.  I love this photo of a bird's nest with 3 blue eggs inside.  I could just imagine it in coloured pencil but I knew it would be a huge challenge for me.  Anyway, this is what it looks like after about 2 hours.

Finished

Here is the finished piece, I feel I could tweak this till the cows come home but I'm going to leave it now, I've certainly learnt a lot doing this portrait.

Progress

I'm kind of regretting my decision to use blue paper now, but anyway this is what the portrait looks like now after another drawing session....

Thomas - Work in Progress

Started this pastel portrait today of my son Thomas (at 7 months old).  I've always wanted to draw this particular photo as he had such bright eyes.  It's off to a good start I think, still lots to do.  I am only using two colours for this portrait, black and white

Fur studies

Finally got these animal fur studies completed for the Pet Portraits Diploma.  Long dog fur in pastel, zebra fur in graphite and curly sheep fur in oil paint.

First attempts at oil paint

Finally got a chance to sit down and try out my new oil paints, a study of a grape and apple.  I did these on canvas paper which is great for practicing without ruining a whole canvas.  I quickly realised the paint brushes I have aren't very good but I still managed to do an ok job.

Olivia finished

Olivia is finished I think.  Instead of drawing the background wallpaper I came up with the idea of using stencils with chalk ink pads, worked well.

Olivia - Work in Progress

Work in Progress. Coloured pencils on pale pink Mi-Teintes paper.  I'm fairly happy with the way this is going.  I'm planning on doing a subtle pattern in the background, like a wallpaper effect...

Woodley finished!

Managed to finish Woodley this afternoon, just in time as I am going interstate tomorrow for a week so I really wanted it done.  I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.  It certainly is time consuming drawing dog fur with coloured pencils but I enjoyed it.

New oil paint set!

Progress

This is what it looks like after drawing session 3, I was starting to go cross-eyed drawing all that fur!  Still more to do....

WIP

Started Woodley's portrait today in coloured pencil on grey pastel paper.  I chose grey because I thought his gold fur would show up better on it than white paper.  The eyes are basically done, more work needed on the nose and mouth and then I have to tackle the hard part, the fur!  I'm happy with the way it's looking so far, definitely have a likeness already.

Woodley

This is my beautiful dog Woodley, I am going to attempt to draw him with coloured pencils, wish me luck with all that fur!

Cat

My first drawing using my new pencils!  Rendering the fur was very tedious but I'm happy with the results.

Faber Castell Polychromos Coloured Pencils

Splashed out and bought a full set (120) of Faber Castell Polychromos coloured pencils!  Can't wait to try them out