Up Ahead: WIP

The start of my latest landscape, from a photo taken while walking my dogs:

Update: Some refinements made, now I think it's time for some fixative.  I'll go back and bump up the lightest areas, but I think it's close to finished...

Bulldog: WIP Phase 2

Second layer on Milo the Mini Bulldog...I'm pretty happy with it, so maybe just a few tweaks and it will be done.

The latest version.

Bulldog: WIP

Work in progress: a pastel piece inspired by a photo of my Mini Bulldog named Milo.  The pose fit perfectly into a 3:1 format, which is really fun to work with.

Original photo, cropped.

Initial sketch on gray Ampersand Pastelbord.

First layer of color.

Sheep

I guess I have barnyard critters on the brain!  Here's a piece I'm messing around with, playing with alternating layers of soft and oil pastel...

Geese at the Fair: WIP

I was hoping to have more progress completed on this piece by now, but I'm fighting a nasty chest cold.  Oh well...here it is, so far.

Geese at the Fair: WIP

I've started work on my submission for this year's State Fair Fine Arts competition.  I'm working from a reference photo I took a few years back.  I saw some geese in a cage in the back of a truck, and I got a few pictures.  It just struck me kind of funny, to see a bunch of geese in a truck...maybe you had to be there.  Anyway, here's the reference photo:

And here's phase one of my piece:

I did a bit of "underpainting" with dry pastels sprayed heavily with fixative, then blended a bit with a brush.

I omitted some of the geese in the photo to simplify the composition.  I still haven't decided if I'll include the cage bars or not...if I do, it will be at the very end...and I may shift them so they don't intersect with goose eyeballs so much!

WIP: Tuff the Pug, part II

Tonight's progress on Tuff the Pug in colored pencil:

WIP: Tuff the Pug

My latest work, a portrait of my very own Pug, Tuff, in colored pencil on black paper.  Just getting the inital highlights in, so not much to see yet.

I'm using the same reference photo that I used for this pencil portrait of Tuff:

This will evenually go up on the new website, to show how the same subject would look in a different medium or style.

Checkers, Phase II

Here's my progress on the portrait of Checkers, the cute Champion Aussie Cattle Dog:

Almost done!  Probably just one more layer of highlights to go...

Commission WIP: Checkers!

Another one of my donated gift certificates being redeemed!  This is my first Australian Cattle Dog, and first show dog.  Meet Champion Shalimar's Spell Check, aka Checkers!  This is the first layer of pastel, quite dark right now, but the next layers will lighten up quite a bit:

G is for German Shepherd (Work in Progress)

Working on the latest in my Dogs: A - Z series, G is for German Shepherd.  Oil on panel, 9" x 12".  Just kind of laying down colors, at this point I think it needs to dry a bit before the next layer:

Another Update on Grace

Today's progress:

The blue in the muzzle is a lot more subtle in the original, but it seems like the camera picked it up pretty intensely...I'm getting close to finished, though, so a scan is next anyway...