snow leopard completed

This is scanned, so hopefully the colours are more accurate. As you can see I have altered the crop, mainly because I couldn't get the paper to take any more pastel and I felt the fur on his body didn't look quite right.

I've added more white and dark grey, some light touches of pinky brown and peach to the fur and a hint of grey to his eyes.

I will definitely use velour again, but must get some soft pastels for the early layers and just use the pencils for detail, then naybe I will get better coverage.

A little progress

I've not had much time for art in the last few days but did a little on the snow leopard today. I'm finding him harder now, the softer fluffy looking fur is proving tricky.

I've darkened some areas on his head and lightened others and put in his whiskers - they don't show up as well as I'd like. Hopefully the next time I post, he'll be finished.

I'm taking photos of the wips rather than scanning and I notice that the colour is looking different on each one due to the different light and time of day that I've taken the photo. I shall have to decide whether to risk scanning the final one or if I'll just play around with the colour to get it as close as possible. Even scanning doesn't reproduce the picture perfectly.

snow leopard work in progress 3

I was able to spend some time drawing this morning while waiting in for a delivery, usually such a sunny day would have had me grabbing the camera and departing for the forest - especially as last week the weather was so bad.
Anyway, he is progressing quite nicely I think and even Clive has said it is good!! This one might even be framed and hung on my wall.

Snow Leopard progress

I'm happy with the way this picture is progressing - at the moment anyway! Today I've added some basic shading for his fur and done more work on his mouth, teeth and muzzle. I would have got more done, but had unexpected visitors. Probably a good thing, making me put it to one side and give some thought to the next stage, instead of rushing it, which is what usually happens.

snow leopard on velour

I hadn't realised how long it's been since my last post - I've been out and about taking photographs, making the most of the spell of hot weather. Today I made a start on the snow leopard, he is in pastel pencil on velour paper. It is an odd surface to work on and my initial impression is that it won't take many layers, nor will I be able to get much detail. This maybe due to me using pastel pencils - I think that soft pastels would be better for the early layers and only using the pencil for fine detail. I have been think about buying some soft pastels for a while but haven't got around to doing an order. I'm working from a photograph that I took last year at Marwell Zoo - their snow leopard is old but still magnificent - though I have added back his missing top tooth!