Structure of Life

New painting for the lounge, it’s DNA double helix…we just wanted something simple in black and white to balance to the redness of the wall.

Toby complete

After a lot of procrastination, I finally finished the sketch of Toby.
Quite pleased with my first time attempt at the fur, using a needle to outline the lines, but messed up the whiskers big time – see the shaky lines!

WIP 2 Toby

Approx 2 hours later…

The longer fur around his forehead is proving tricky on such a small scale. I think I will try the next one on A3 paper so I can get more detail in. This drawing is just on some bog standard A4 paper from ‘Smiths.

You can see my reference photo Here.

WIP1 Toby – White fur

I’m currently working on a drawing of my dog Toby. He’s a Japanese Spitz, so he’s pure white with striking black eyes…the fur will be a real challenge…he’s how far I’ve got:

WIP – surface of the sun painting

Anyone who’s been in our lounge will know there are not many paintings on the walls…this is soon to change! I spotted a photo of the surface of the sun in an Astronomy book and thought it would make a colourful and abstract painting to brighten up one of the walls. What I didn’t realize was how boring it would be to paint all the little round “bubbles”. Attempts at progress such as “10 bubbles a day, might finally get there in a year” have failed. I’m currently blitzing an area each weekend…and slowly getting there.

I’ve been using Winsor and Newton’s water soluble oils (didn’t even know there was such a thing!) as I hate the smell of Turps. They seem to work fine, but I don’t have a greal deal of experience with regular “anti-water” oils to notice the difference really.

The original photo that I’m working from is courtesy of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.