Each year, from 1st April to 7th May, National Pet Month advocates responsible pet ownership, raising awareness through educational campaigns and fundraising events.
As pet-lovers, we are encouraged to run our own events or getting involved in organised events across the country. They have so many ideas for raising awareness: a Supporters’ Toolkit to download, competitions and even teachers’ lesson plans! Why didn’t they have cool lessons like this when I was at school?
Today, I mailed out my first newsletter with news about the updated prices, my new studio and even a DISCOUNT CODE. Please take a look below and see what you think. I hope to keep you up-to-date with what’s going in a quarterly letter like this. If you’d like to be added to the mailing list then please just let me know your email address – over on the right of this text, or if you’re on a smartphone then you can subscribe down at the bottom of this page.
Spring Forward
Spring has arrived and finally we’ve seen the back of the snow. The only downside to this time of year is the hour of sleep we’ll lose on Sunday morning as the clocks shift forward for British Summer Time. Thankfully, I don’t need to stand by a muddy rugby pitch at 9am these days, but I’ll be thinking of all those parents who do – from my nice warm bed!
So much of this time of year puts a ‘spring’ in my step, but apart from the new shoots, the extra sunlight and the hope of warmer days, the absolute best part has to be the new life. I am so lucky to live very close to woodland and have already spotted young deer out and about. I am looking forward to drawing some of this gorgeous British wildlife in the very near future.
New Shoots, New Prices
In addition to the sanguine portraits I have been drawing for the last few years, I can now offer colour portraits. I’ve had so much fun drawing these and look forward to many happy hours creating pink-nosed pugs, brown-eyed boys and grey grannies!
All prices have been updated, and if you’ve been hoping to commission a portrait but were deterred by costs then you may be pleasantly surprised.
Find out more
The Bare Essentials
If you’ve been following my posts you’ll know that we’ve spent the last few months – in fact a year and a half – debating a home extension versus moving house and many other options, to find the space we need. A fair chunk of this fantasy was to include a studio.
I won’t traumatise you with the ins and outs of why we eventually opted to move. But we’d made the decision and so our journey began….
My new studio
Keeping Down Waste
We have all watched in horror, the recent news reports of our oceans slowly filling with plastic bags floating like jelly fish, and seahorses trying to mate with cotton-buds. According to EcoWatch 50% of sea turtles have already consumed plastic and the amount of plastic in the oceans is set to increase ten fold in the next decade. Governments would have us believe the solution is complicated. So, it seems that as long as the laws allow industries to continue making plastics, the responsibility for reducing demand has to lie with individuals.
Read about my commitment
Discount Code
Many of my drawings are available to buy as prints, tote bags, cushions etc. Just for spring (until 21st June) and for newsletter readers only I am offering a special discount. The products are printed by Fine Art America and so the discount applies only to my commission and will vary with each item.
The code is STLLTN and should be applied at the checkout.
We have all watched in horror, the recent news reports of our oceans slowly filling with plastic bags floating like jelly fish, and seahorses trying to mate with cotton-buds. According to EcoWatch 50% of sea turtles have already consumed plastic and the amount of plastic in the oceans is set to increase ten fold in the next decade. Governments would have us believe the solution is complicated. So, it seems that as long as the laws allow industries to continue making plastics, the responsibility for reducing demand has to lie with individuals.
[custom_headline type=”left” level=”h2″ looks_like=”h5″ accent=”true”]Packaging of my Drawings[/custom_headline]
Recyclable
Reused
Degradable
No-Bend Envelope
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Cardboard Insert
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Glassine Sheet
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Cellophane Packet
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Recycled Cardboard Package
Plastics themselves fall into four categories: Non-recyclable, recyclable, recycled, degradable. Degradable plastics are far superior to those which may be or have been recycled. Recycling gives the product another use before it spends the next two hundred years in landfill. Degradable plastics will be reduced back into the ground within a matter of months or even weeks.
I avoid the use of plastics wherever I can, but where I do buy them, they will be degradable. Sometimes I may use bubblewrap. This will always be in the interest of re-using it as I receive a lot of this with the supplies I buy.
The packaging I use most often is cardboard. The beauty of card and paper is that whether or not you recycle it, it will soon enough break down and can be composted easily. Reusing cardboard is an ideal first step in turning the tide, and reduces production costs. I would encourage you to re-use my packaging wherever you can.
The quest for the best brand of pastel pencil for portrait drawing is a subject I have seen discussed all over the web, and, in my search for the ideal tool, is something I have researched extensively. However, my choice of pastel pencil will vary from other artists’ as I don’t limit myself to a single brand.
Buying (or receiving a gift of) a tin of pastel pencils, to get you started, is a common reason for singling out a particular brand. This may appear economical but it is worth considering starting with a selection of open-stock pencils and adding to your collection as needed. In buying a set, you will always be left with colours that sit unused for years. And conversely, however big a set you buy, you will always be left wanting.
Following the advice of other artists (Colin Bradley, Art Tutor and others) I bought a good selection of portrait-type colours in Faber-Castell Pitt Pastel Pencils. I find them firm enough to allow good control and with a decent amount of pigment. They are certainly a good choice and have a reasonable range of colours. But, they’re not my favourite.
Actually my least favourite. As well as the core often arriving shattered, these are hard and scratchy with an apparently high chalk content. I will avoid in future.
My regular online supplier, Jackson’s offer an excellent choice in open stock, so I have tried quite a few. However, my modest collection of Derwent pastel pencils originates mostly from tins I bought long before I had the world wide web of pastel choice available to me (yep, that was a very long time ago!). As you might expect, they haven’t aged well. They are dry and brittle, and it wouldn’t be fair to give the brand a bad review based on my decades old collection.
I have, however, bought a few Derwents from Jackson’s in recent weeks and I’ll let you know, just as soon as I’m able to form an opinion.
These pencils are a work of art. They are so beautiful I want to eat them! With their bleached wood finish and dipped end of colour, they do for me what sweets must do for most children. The pastel itself is just as delicious – no I haven’t tasted it, but I’m tempted!
They sweep onto the page like butter and are highly pigmented. But… a yummy tool experience does not necessarily equate to a good drawing implement and I’m afraid I generally find these too soft. Their high colour value and luscious choice of hue means I find myself choosing this brand just for the colour. The softness feels nice but isn’t practical as it leaves an uneven texture which is especially fiddly for smooth skin or hair. My solution is to lay the Caran d’Ache colour down, however unevenly, and almost burnish it to a smooth finish with a harder (Pitt) relevant shade.
My collection of Bruynzeels is very small and the only experience I can report is that they are brittle and I have found them almost impossible to sharpen. More research is needed though and I will be back with more information when I have it.
Often softer than Pitt, and brighter too, these are usually my favourite. Some of the colours, such as orange and caput mortem, I could not live without.
However, as I implied, quality of the core is inconsistent as the texture of Carbothello varies between colours. Caput mortem has a distinctive mid-tone hue and I always use it for drawing out the line but it is a bit harder and more scratchy than the equivalent Pitt colour, so for rendering a smooth texture I am more inclined to use the Pitt.
Coloured Pebbles in Pastel Pencil on Strathmore Charcoal Paper
I have given you so many options and no definitive answer. So which should you use? Which do I use?
All of them!
Each has its own benefits and pitfalls. I would always suggest trying as many different brands as you can. The way to do this without costing a small fortune is to write yourself a list of the types of colours you need, eg, dark red, ivory, pale pink, yellow ochre etc and then go through the open stock of each brand selecting only one or two from each colour-type, but spread your choice over 5 or 6 brands.
You will soon come to know the textures and ease of use for you and like me, you will probably find the right choice of pencil for you is all of them!
[columnize]This checklist is a much condensed version of my Photography Guidelines article. If you have photographs ready to send me, I would just encourage you to check them against this list:
Resolution: Can you see individual eyelashes and lines on the lips (when zoomed in)? I am not necessarily going to draw every last hair but I can’t create a likeness if the images are vague. The more detail that’s visible, the better.
Light: Good quality daylight is essential. And – I hate to keep giving you rules but – please don’t send me a portrait in silhouette – honestly, this happens a lot!
Permission If somebody else took the photographs you are sending, please make sure you have their permission for me to recreate them.
Finally: I am not judging your skills as a photographer. Just send me a few images and we’ll take it from there.
If you’ve been following my posts you’ll know that we’ve spent the last few months – in fact a year and a half – debating a home extension versus moving house and many other options, to find the space we need. A fair chunk of this fantasy was to include a studio.
I won’t traumatise you with the ins and outs of why we eventually opted to move. But we’d made the decision and so our journey began. Our home was particularly ‘busy’ (to put it nicely) and probably not too attractive to buyers. We had to completely rethink how we used the space and whittle our possessions down to the bare essentials.
So, with all my pastel drawing equipment safely hidden away in storage, our cramped cluttered home was transformed into a space that somebody could picture full of their own possessions and would actually want to buy. And eventually they did!
So here we are.
I absolutely love my sparkly new studio! It has everything I need. Walls, floor, light and SPACE! The only thing left to do is erect some shelving – next job after writing this blog!
And drawings? Well, I have been experimenting with all sorts. I conducted a secret ballot with members of my family to see which pictures were preferred – I didn’t want them influencing each other. I was particularly surprised to see how popular the rabbit is. I like it, but I wouldn’t have rated it compared to the others. However, this is a pleasing revelation as I had been thinking of drawing more wild animals, especially British wildlife. In fact my head is buzzing with all of sorts birds and mammals, I can barely make my mind up. If you have any ideas for animals you’d like me to draw, please let me know.
So, surrounded by boxes of paper and stacks of equipment, there is light at the end of the tunnel. I have my cup of Yorkshire tea with soya milk and my gluten free Hob Nob. My studio is feeling a lot like home.
Only two weeks away from the shortest day (in the Northern hemisphere), it’s becoming increasingly difficult to draw in the limited winter daylight. Not only has the best of the light gone by 2:30pm but when we do have sun, it is very low in the sky so illumination of the subject and the paper is restricted.
To overcome this there are several options and I have spent the last week comparing four of them. Before I go on, I will just make clear that I’m talking here about quality of light, not about hue. I’ve been sketching with graphite pencil and white paper so the colour of light is irrelevant.
The first and most obvious form of light is natural light – that big blob of fire in the sky. It may be hiding in the other hemisphere for two thirds of the day and then behind clouds for the rest of it, but it is still there and will always be my favourite kind of illumination.
At this time of year, it is possible to see a phenomenon which is visible all the time, but more evident now: If you are indoors observing an object, say a metre from the window, on an overcast day then you will see two shadows. This is because there are two light sources – the sun itself, and then the glow of the cloud cover. If you were outdoors then the glow from the sky (illuminated from behind by the sun) would be all around and so not so obvious. But, when indoors it will be refined as it is only coming from the direction of the window.
In this case I would generally do what I can to cover the sun because its light will fluctuate, not only in strength as the clouds move by, but also in position as it glides across the winter sky. The beauty of illumination from an overcast sky is its diffused nature and in winter the angle of illumination will be fairly low and eerie.
The best hours of sunlight in midwinter are between 10am and 2pm – on a good day! This isn’t very long at all, and if you don’t have the luxury of these hours to yourself, then winter sun isn’t an option.
I would most often draw in this kind of light at home. This is because I draw on the dining table and in this room we have four LED downlights. In general, these lights are great and give good illumination to most of the room whenever required. However, multiple sources of light can be a challenge when drawing. Contrast is drastically reduced. This is a problem because the change in shadow, gives the eye huge clues about the shape of something. The accurate observation of shadow turns a two dimensional object, three dimensional.
Chilli Powder Line Drawing
Four light sources also means four shadows. Describing [extra href=”#example” title=”Form” info=”popover” info_place=”top” info_trigger=”hover” info_content=”Representation of a three-dimensional object in space” ] form [/extra] with multiple light sources can be problematic. But actually I have found this the inspiration for some interesting projects – both replications of the patterns made by four shadows and also some pleasing line drawings where I have been forced to observe contour by ignoring shade altogether.
It may not be considered the ideal light source, but four downlights are the light conditions I use most in winter, just because it involves the least effort to set up!
[custom_headline type=”left” level=”h2″ looks_like=”h2″ accent=”true”]Reading Lamp[/custom_headline]
A strong source of light, in very close proximity, can offer dramatic lighting effects. There will be very little room for gradual change of depth, even on a rounded surface so I find myself trying to find subtleties that perhaps are not there. Also, I find it hard to distinguish patches of dark cast shadow from [extra href=”#example2″ title=”Form Shadow” info=”popover” info_place=”top” info_trigger=”hover” info_content=”The less defined dark side on an object, hidden from the light source” ] form shadow [/extra]. I can’t use the clues I normally would in my drawings as there is so little graduation. I didn’t have much fun with this type of light.
This lamp is nothing special – just an old bedside lamp. The kind with a shade. Although this is placed as close to the subject as the reading lamp, the effect is much more subtle. Again drama is created, but the [extra href=”#example” title=”Form” info=”popover” info_place=”top” info_trigger=”hover” info_content=”Representation of a three-dimensional object in space.” ] form [/extra] of an object is easier to represent as graduation is a little softer. As we aren’t fussy about colour of light at the moment, I’d say this is on a par with the light from an overcast sky – only far more reliable.
Drawing in Diffused Lamp Light
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For representing [extra href=”#example” title=”Form” info=”popover” info_place=”top” info_trigger=”hover” info_content=”Representation of a three-dimensional object in space” ] form [/extra] the diffused lamp gives a better quality of light than the reading lamp and multiple downlights, but for line drawings and interesting effects I am quite happy with the downlights. However, ideally, I would light my subject naturally with overcast sky. If you cannot escape direct sunlight from your window then an overcast-type effect can be achieved with glassine paper at the window or a plain net curtain.
Those familiar with my portrait drawings may be forgiven for thinking I only see in sanguine and white. This is something I am very aware of, and for a long time I have been working on incorporating colour into my portraits.
I am not an artist who avoids colour – if you’ve seen my Artfinder and Etsy pages then you’ll know that my problem is more about which medium to settle with! I have worked in oils, watercolour, pro-markers, pastels, coloured pencils… mixed media! There a pros to ALL these media. I would like to say each have their cons, but to be honest I’m not sure I could list them. I love them all!
Another thing the more observant of you will know – I’ve not been around for a while. Our house has been so hectic these last few months. First there was the extension which never materialised, time I’ve spent on other artistic projects, then the summer holidays (impossible to make any plans during this time!) and then we put all the ‘clutter’ into storage with a view to selling the house. Yes, I’m afraid that clutter includes my paints. Believe me, if you’d seen our house before this decluttering then you’d probably agree. Pencils and sketchbooks stayed out – I have to keep some grip on sanity – but even most of my sanguine pencils have been banished to a corrugated tin shed on the other side of town.
The good news is that we have now made some progress with the sale of the house and no longer need to live such a sparse existence. So the watercolours are back in the house!
Why watercolours? Well, they were the first medium I used when I started painting 24 years ago and I’ve always loved their freshness, versatility and personality. Also – they are easy to clean away! Until we move house, my studio is confined to the dining table, and as the kitchen table left in the big clear-out, we really do need that dining table for eating!
You have no idea how excited I am to be painting again. I hope to share some of my work with you soon, and soon after that I might let you see my coloured portraits!
Whether you want a stunning picture of your elegant hound for the wall, to spam social media with your gorgeous pug or are in need of a detailed reference photograph for an art project – you want the best possible image of your pet and all your have is a smartphone.
Any professional photographer will tell you the key elements of photograph are good light, focus and composition. Of course a swanky DSLR with a super-speedy lens (and a few years photography experience) will almost guarantee your beautiful portrait, but actually a smartphone and a few basic ideas can propel you a long way in the right direction.
Taking Better Pictures of Your Pet With a Smartphone
1) Enough Light
Your camera’s lens reproduces a likeness of the subject by recording the light reflected from it. However good your camera, it can only do this if it picks up enough light. A smartphone will make every attempt to capture an image, so when set to the default “AUTO” setting it will adjust ISO and aperture speed to compensate for low light levels. This is why pictures taken at dusk (for instance) would be grainy and have very low levels of clarity. So it follows that a brighter aspect will allow for a much sharper image.
I prefer to photograph in natural light – close to a window or outdoors on a bright overcast day. A good amount of reflected light will not only feed more information to your lens but allows the lens to work quicker and in the case of animals this can be critical!
Many pets will be far happier outdoors anyway and this will help with creating an environment your in which your pet feels at ease and often in their element. A Dog Outdoors
2) Focus
Given the right lighting conditions there is no need to ever take an out-of-focus picture. Smartphones allow you to select the exact spot to focus the image – which in most cases should be the eye. You can experiment with focussing on different spots. The example below focusses on the nose. It draws attention away from the eye and distances us from the animal. When capturing a portrait this is rarely a favourable look. Use Smartphone to Select Area of Focus
3) Avoid Blur
In terms of clarity this is similar to the above. However, it may not be as easy to address. Your pet is lively and doesn’t like to pose for the camera. You could go through any number of ways to tempt them to stay still – plenty of hints can be found here on RedBarn Inc but if all else fails how about just having someone hold the pet on a close rein and you can get in and take a cropped portrait eliminating all exterior clutter – and people.
Cropped Portrait Eliminating All Clutter
The ultimate way to avoid movement is to snap your pet while they’re sleeping. This often catches them at their cutest and can make a really quirky portrait. See this article from Digital Photography Review for some great examples.
4) Background
A busy background can be very distracting – and if your house is anything like mine this is difficult to avoid! Another good reason to take your pet outdoors. Even if you can’t find a suitable vista to place your animal, you can always stand above him/her and make a background out of the ground.
5) Make it Natural
A posed photograph is hard to get, even with the best trained animal, but in general a natural candid portrait is going to show your pet’s character and additionally gives the photographer more freedom.
Give yourself, and your pet, plenty of time to relax. Follow him round with the camera and expect to take lots of really awful pictures – that’s the great thing about digital photography – you can delete the failures and all it cost was your time. Eventually you’re patience will pay off.
Kitten Captured in a Natural Pose
6) Plan Ahead
It’s all very well dragging your pet outside when the light is right and he’s in a good mood – but if you have to dash off on the school run in 15 minutes then you’re not relaxed and you will both soon feel the stress. If you think of this as a professional photo-shoot then you may consider that your time is valuable, you will possibly (probably!) do a better job without the kids in tow and that you may even have a better chance at success if you draw up a plan. Give yourself lots of opportunities to try different shots, give yourself breaks and then when you do eventually check through your many attempts you may find some nice surprises.
