Vince and Alfie

A2 pencil sketch.

Edinburgh Museum

I recently moved to Edinburgh to start a new job so it's been a while since I've had any time to get my sketchbook out and do some drawing. This weekend I went to one of the museums in Edinburgh and spent a lot of time in the animal room drawing. My favorite of the set has to be the giraffe which was actually my first drawing of the day. You could stand on the floor above and look down on this giraffe model which just allowed a lovely angle for drawing. Anyone who knows me will know I'm part giraffe or at least related to one.

Swallows & Magpies

I've been talking about tattoos a lot recently and my friends told me they really wanted one of swallows and magpies. I spent some time today doing some studies. The top 3 are magpies and the bottom 2 are swallows. The first set of swallow drawings are done from actual tattoo designs where as the second are from swallow reference. It's interesting to see how the forms are simplified into a more pleasing design. I really enjoyed having some practice drawing wings and the splaying feathers.

Long and Short Grey

Just added a grey background to give a point of focus and make the text more legible.

Long and Short II

Here's a second go at the logo. The dog needed to be at a lower angle to see the short legs and long hair. I've also included my quick tablet sketches as I was looking for a pose.

The Long & the Short of it

This evening I spent a few hours making this logo. I only used my graphics tablet which was a nice change. There's possibly too much detail of the cute dog for a logo that would be lost in a small scale. It's hard fighting my desire to create realistic imagery. This made a nice change from all the 3D work I have been doing lately.

Rooney German Shepherd

This was done as a wedding gift for a close friend. I have grown up with two German Shepherd dogs and I think they are gorgeous. This was a pleasure to draw as he is a stunning dog.

I found the image to be very washed out and lacking in contrast. I didn't have any pens that would work on such heavy pencil marks so I decided to experiment and used black ink and a really old ink pen. It turned out to be a great mix adding strong lines and deep blacks. Definitely something I will reuse in the future. I was also really lucky with the frame. The image proportions were rather wide and I was expecting to have to trim a lot off but I actually found a really wide frame for it which only required minimal trimming.

Really pleased with the final outcome. It has inspired me to dig out some old pictures of my dogs and create some portraits of them.

Happy Cats Final

Here are the happiest cats in the world. Drawn in pastels and chalks. I'm definitely a dog person.

Himalayan Siamese

Here's some happy cats

Pet Portrait Final

Finally finished this portrait! Pleased with the the outcome and it took me surprisingly less time than previous pieces.

Cats

Continuing work on this portrait, I have been sketching one of the cats to be included aswel.

Roli the Dog-Horse

More sketches of Roli for a large portrait I'm working on. This dog is as big as a pony. When he stands next to you his head comes up above my waist, and I'm a tall guy!

Alfie Sketches

Noura final painting

Here is the finished painting. Acrylic 60 x 80cms

Noura painting

I was commissioned to create a portrait painting of a beautiful horse called Noura running along a beach using some photographs as reference. I spent a great deal of time sketching the horse trying to get the proportions correct and capture the character and look of Noura.

At first I found it quite difficult getting everything to scale but after a while I was starting to like the drawings I produced. I then moved onto the canvas, deciding to do this on a larger scale than I'd done before. Firstly I felt the image needed to be large to capture the horse with enough detail and also to give the background beach room. Secondly I was keen to try working on a larger scale to see what I could accomplish.

This is my favorite piece of work to do date, I'm very pleased with the look of the piece and managing to to capture the horse in a believable way.

Axle Portrait