With no commissioned art work at the moment, I have been occupying myself with this pencil drawing of a gorilla. It is based on a photograph taken at a zoo by a friend of mine, and I loved the contemplative look on his face.
First I stained a sheet of The Langton Extra Smooth watercolour paper with a few coats of strong tea, which makes for a lovely sepia tone. The gorilla has been simply drawn using an HB pencil, an Aquarelle water soluble pencil, a white pencil for highlights and a 6B for a few final darks. He had to be looking at something, so I have drawn in a small fluffy feather floating above his head.
Due to the overcast winter daylight conditions and the reflectiveness of the darker pencil shading, it has been a nightmare trying to get a decent photograph of this. This is the best I can do, but you get the general idea.
Whilst it is always good to have paid work coming in, sometimes it is even better to have the spare time to draw or paint what I really want to get down on paper. I've not had much chance to do that this past year,so this opportunity has been very welcome.
On the knitted front.....look out for a whippet with a badly cut tail and an injured paw coming shortly!
