Shih Zhu

Good afternoon, Those that know my wife knows she is the crazy Shih Zhu lady. We have 3 of our own plus Penny our rescue girl and she dogs sits for others.

So when she asked me to do this painting I had to oblige. 

I followed along with a Colin Bradley tutorial but now have the confidence to add my own techniques to my work.

I used Faber Castell Pitt pencils (as these give more definition than soft pastels) on Fabriano Tiziano paper.

He looks a little like Paddy one of our Shih Zhus and in the future I may repeat this using one of our dogs as a model.

Chicago Skyline

Good afternoon, Over the holiday weekend I spent some time in my studio and completed a new soft pastel painting.

This time I did something different I painted a night sky using Faber Castell and Mungyo GalleryMungyo Gallery soft pastels on Fabriano Tiziano paper.

The skyline started as a template cut using a Cameo die-cutting machine and I then traced this onto my painting filling it in with black pastel. I added a faint light around this to emphasize the buildings.

Last night my wife and I had some rare adult time and attended a exhibit reception of 2 wonderful artists, Anita Sams mainly uses colored pencils and has some amazing life like botanical images. Cheryl Gould paints in watercolor and her woodland painting have so much depth and unbelievable detail that I could stare at them for hours.