This drawing of Warney Mill is destined for a book cover. The image is an artists’ impression of how the mill used to look based on old and recent photographs, some floorplans and a lot of sleuthing by the author. My original detailed pencil sketches included the top windows, which wouldn’t have been there, and other details I’d drawn in that weren’t relevant. After making the changes I tested the size of pen nib needed in order for the reduction from A3 to work when printed. I chose a 0.2 Unipin fineline and tentatively put in the details although this felt like quite a thick nib for the amount of detail I needed to add. However it needs to translate well on the print press. I drew the trees and some of the background to give the building some context and edges, darkened up the slate roof areas and added a plethora of dashes and dots to suggest stone walls. At t that point I checked I was on the right lines before darkening everything up as it’s easier to put pen marks in than take them out! By finishing the doorway, adding a suggestion of grass for the foreground and circling some clouds in the sky I could then see how much additional detail I needed to finish off the drawing. I have deliberately kept the building light so needed to darken up the tree and background areas to help it stand out more. I also stippled a number of dots to suggest the path ad add subtle detail where needed.
Willow - cat portrait in acrylic
This is the start of a portrait Willow who is destined to join her friends Eddie and Jess on the red wall of fame. I started by cropping all he various photos to see which one might work best on a 12 x 16” box canvas and decided the one of her showing her tummy might work best. I sketched a detailed drawing of all her markings and moved her tail to a different position so it wouldn’t go off the canvas and would curl around her a bit. Then, using a mix of payne’s grey, mars black and a bit of yellow ochre the cast shadows were painted in with a big brush, followed by the darker markings using a fine brush. White was mixed with blues, purples and greys to form the shadows on areas of white fur and a few of the mid-tones were added. This was left to dry before the background colour was painted over the shadows, around the cat and down the deep edges of the canvas. This colour was tricky to mix as I want to match it to the other portraits previously painted, to tie them all together as I can’t remember exactly what I used. I will probably rebalance this later on but I wanted to see how this would affect the colour of Willow’s coat. Next, I mixed a variety of cool and warm browns and greys and applied them as washes over the tabby markings, leaving some layers to dry and others to merge. The last two images show the most work but not a lot appears to change or is terribly apparent in photographs as layers of different colours and tones are applied with small brushes to build up the depth and density of the coat. I also deepened up the cast shadows and played with the background with a big brush, which took less time and gave me a break from the detail. I’m nearly finished… I just need to balance the lights and darks and paint those all-important whiskers!