Zulu – Rhodesian Ridgeback portrait hand drawn in Traditional Charcoals on drafting film.
A selected range of quality products featuring this charcoal painting “Zulu” can be seen below and are now available for purchase.
VIEW ALL PRODUCTS FEATURING “ZULU” RHODESIAN RIDGEBACK DOG PAINTING
I received a very distressed phone call today from a client, her daughters much loved elderly Rhodesian Ridgeback had been diagnosed with an inoperable tumour, and unfortunately the only thing that could be done was to humanely put her to sleep. Like so many people, Lady’s owner didn’t have many good photos of her, and my client asked me if I could go down to the vet’s surgery and take some photos before Lady was laid to rest before the end of the day.
I know what its like to loose a treasured companion, and I also know how important good images are to help heal the pain of their passing, so I was more than happy to help. Luckily there was a small garden outside the vet surgery so I was able to get some beautiful shots of this grand old girl that I hope will keep her memory alive for her family forever.
Rhodesian Ridgeback Portrait - © South West Photography
Rhodesian Ridgeback Portrait - © South West Photography
Rhodesian Ridgeback Portrait - © South West Photography
Rest In Peace Lady, you were loved and will be missed.
I’m glad to report that the new carpet has been laid and our house is slowly returning to normal – I today I can finally step back inside my studio!
After painting for the last few pieces, I wanted to get my hand back into drawing mode so I started this Rhodesian Ridgeback as a quick experiment see how graphite works on drafting film. Drafting film is my favourite support for colour pencil work, but I have never tried it for graphite until now (very few artists use it, although I have found one artist who has been using it as a support for thirty odd years).
Photographing it proved very difficult, but I have finally managed to get a semi-reasonable digital image of this one by scanning it, it is still a work in progress, so not yet completed. Film is a really nice surface to work on, and it is more like painting in graphite and charcoal than drawing that is both good and bad, good because it allows very soft transitions of tone, bad because it is easy to lift off and smudge.
I normally only use charcoal for getting my darkest darks in my graphite work, but I found myself leaning more and more towards the charcoal with this one, and whats more, really enjoying ‘painting’ with it using a variety of tools such as chamois, tissue, cotton buds (q-tips), a watercolour brush and a make-up sponge.
Probably the best thing about drafting film though, is the ability to put a different colour paper behind the drawing. I used a cream parchment paper, and although it dosn’t show properly in the scan (think marbled/mottled cream rather than solid), the effect it gives in real life is really interesting, and something I am looking forward to experimenting a bit more with.
The reference photo was one of my own, and the drawing is approximately A4 in size and when it is finished I will probably offer prints of it at RedBubble.
The first image shows the drawing with the cream backing:
The second image shows the drawing with a white background:
I’d love to know your opinion on my experiment, and if you use drafting film for graphite and charcoal work, or would like a charcoal pet portrait of your own Rhodesian Ridgeback, I’d love to chat;)
Things are progressing along, the Fine Art and Photography gallery have now been added, (but they arn’t linked from the front page yet, and the slideshow isn’t working at this stage).
The links page has been set up and split into different categories so that there are not too many links on each page. The Commissions, Prints, gifts and merchandise pages are up, as is the original fine art for sale page, but I havn’t been able to add any pieces yet.
It will be a few more days that I first expected to get everything sorted out with the website, unfortunately we had storm damage from a tornado that went through our neighbourhood nearly two weeks ago and we have had to empty the furniture and contents of half of our house into the other half of the house to get the damaged carpet replaced. As much as I hate doing it, it is a good excuse to de-clutter and get rid of things we no longer use so its going to take longer to get the house re-organised than originally anticipated…great timing of course (not!) as the kids are also on holidays.
I have a number of new oil paintings that I have been working on in between the last few commissions that I have, including some wildlife – a meerkat, a lemur, a snow leopard and a few dogs – a pug, a Rhodesian Ridgeback and a German Shepherd with plans for a German Shorthaired Pointer, a Chinese Crested and a Golden Retriever, as well as a Border Collie agility piece.
At the moment thought, I can’t get into my studio due to the extra furniture that we have had to put in there, so I will post work in progress photos of them when I get the chance. And at some stage if I ever get the time, I need to add some back dated posts about a few awards my artwork won in a show I entered in October last year. I am hoping to finish up all the commissions by August so that I can focus on my own artwork for a while, so I hope there are no more unexpected interruptions in my life!
There is just not enough hours in the day!
This is one of the commissions I have just finished – definitely one of the hardest I have done due to the lack of detail in the original reference photo (shown below). Unfortunately this beautiful dog recently passed away and so no additional photos could be taken. Considering the lack of detail that was in the photo I am really pleased how this one turned out. What do you think?
Michelle
http://www.pencilportraits.com.au
