On the drawing board - Baxter & Barley

Christmas present. Look at this amazing photo of Baxter! The client persevered with her photography (and my fussiness) and managed to get this great shot! Such a wonderful expression and great lighting. A good clear reference photo makes all the difference and this one is a pleasure to work from.  Whilst I get started on Baxter's portrait, the client is trying for more shots of Barley, as they aren't her dogs she is doing a great job of undercover photography!

Below is the initial sketch of Baxter, more to come once I have completed all the basics. At the moment just getting the main details and fur direction in.

Starting to add more depth of shadow.

                                         

Working on the final detail, just realised I need to do his disk!

                                        

The finished scanned image.

 

Client kindly sent me a photograph of Baxter framed, love her choice of frame.

                                       

Well another wonderful photo, this time of Barley, the client really has got the photography side down now! Love the enquiring look. Below is the initial sketch.

                                                        

Pretty intense few days working on Barley, the reality is that Christmas is looming........ Am working on getting all the basics in place, adding light, shade and structure.

                                    

Continuing to add the basics.

 

Slowly but surely. From an artists point of view, Barley is easier than Baxter because he has some 'white bits', black animals are notoriously difficult and you have to rely on good lighting. Barley's white sections instantly give interest to a drawing and make him unique.

Now at the final detail stage, my favourite part!

A day of analysing and putting the final touches to Barley. Below is a scanned image of the final portrait - is his expression dreaming of running through the fields, or his dinner?

                                                  

Cat rescue - tiny souls

At the moment we are living in Kuwait, where there are sadly never ending problems with stray animals, dumped animals and cruelty cases. It is very frustrating and makes you feel so helpless in face of the enormity of the situation, it will unfortunately take time before any major improvements are seen. I could write pages on this subject alone but the aim of this post is to tell the tale of two tiny Arabian Mau's who my husband rescued in Kuwait, whilst my daughter and I were on holiday in the UK.

                                                                     

On his morning jog, he found a tiny tabby kitten in the middle of the road, literally pulling himself along (he was so young, he couldn't even walk properly yet). My husband did the right thing (I trained him well), he found the kittens litter mate in a nearby bush, and placed the tabby back, in the hope that mum would return; a lot of people don't realise that the females leave their kittens whilst they go out searching for food, they only return to feed them. Often people pick up what they think are abandoned kittens but if they are in quite good shape, mum probably just left them temporarily. Anyway, unfortunately in this case, mum didn't return; in Kuwait the way they control the animal population is by poisoning, so mum might have gone that unfortunate route, or else could have got run over, but the main point was, she wasn't coming back.

                                                                    

So into our spare bathroom they went. At this stage they were probably only about a week old, so the hard work started with the round the clock bottle feeds, my husband had taken on a project! Thankfully he knew what he was doing, as our cats were found down a storm drain in the Philippines when they were just a few days old, tied in a plastic bag, sometimes you have to wonder about mankind!

                                                                     

Well the new babies are now about 7 weeks and slowly gaining strength.They have had their first trip to the vet for vaccinations, something they didn't enjoy at all, well who can blame them really! Now we have the massive challenge of finding them a forever home. Unfortunately there is a severe lack of good homes for animals in Kuwait, we might even have to ship them to the UK or the USA in the search for the perfect home for them, a very expensive option.

In the meantime, they are growing steadily, even though they now look quite big in the latest photo, they are still only tiny babies and weigh about 1 pound each! I hope the perfect home is out there for them, the search is now on!

                                                     

Fast forward a few months and unfortunately as predicted, no good home in Kuwait has been found. However, through a few amazing people, they should be on a flight to America soon to start their new life. It will be so sad to say goodbye (quite a few tears have already been shed) but wonderful for them to get this opportunity, plus our older cats will be so happy to have their peaceful life back.

 

Below are some photos of how they look now, quite the posers! I hope their new forever home, will love them as much as we do.

 

                                                  

 Latest update: they are now living in America with their new family - happy endings are sometimes possible!

                                                 

            

Hanging on

                                               

This adorable little monkey I photographed in Baguio in the Philippines. Unfortunately he was being kept as a pet and was on a long chain tied to the post that he is clinging to. At the time, Baguio was hosting a garden show/competition and somebody seemed to think he enhanced the look of their garden - as I expect you can tell, I am totally against keeping wild animals as pets!

In any case, even though this photograph doesn't hold good memories for me, I do love the depth of emotion in his eyes. I always strife to show emotion in my drawings, therefore I wanted to attempt this one. My husband in the background is saying " A frightened monkey, Denise no one will buy it"! However instead of being commercial, it is more important for me to draw what moves me, so a worried monkey it is!

Have now worked for a few hours on the sketch, am working from top left down. I am going to continue trying to get the face part more detailed before moving onto the rest. So far so good, quite liking the look at the moment, still lots of work to do on the eyes though.

                                                    

Have now worked every area to get the basic structure. Now comes for me the best part, putting him on the easel, stepping back and working from a distance. At this stage I refine the light and shade to start to unify the drawing.

                                                            

Here he is, the finished little monkey. I am so sorry I couldn't help him escape the situation he was in.