All change!

Happy New Year to all of you!

I have decided to change my blogging software, therefore my blog has moved.

Click here to see the new and updated version:
http://jilltisbury.co.uk/wordpress/

See you on the other side

Jilly
xx

It's all go again!

This year seems to be passing by in a sort of mini whirlwind!
....and it's nearly Christmas!

Well this last month has been one of tying up loose ends.
First of all John and I sat our final ever OU exam on 15th October and then spent the weekend away celebrating the end of 6 years of study!

Actually we went to Hunstanton and spent much of the time catching crabs off Cromer pier - what a laugh, it's you've never been crabbing I can highly recommend it.

So then I got the taste for finishing things.....

First you might recall the Mandarin ducks that I started at the beginning ofthe Summer - well here's the finished piece. 

This is one of the 3 pieces that I intend to submit for my art college penultimate exercise set.  I have only one more to go so I figured I'd better get that last piece on the move too.

It's a piece that expresses the personality of my little cat muse Amber, so this is the rough sketch:

Anyone who has been fortunate enough to become a member of staff to a British Blue will know that the old saying of cats is so fitting in this case:

"In ancient civilisations, cat's were once worshipped as Gods,
this is something they have never forgotten!"

Certainly true in Amber's case.  This will be a piece in oils, so watch this space...

Lastly, I was able to use some time at a cat show to finally finished a cute little portfolio piece that I started in August - 'We are Siamese...'

Phew - told you it's been busy...

Next time:

News on two exciting commissions - 3 Welsh Maine Coons and a bautiful little Bengal kitten

Sophie complete

Here are the final few WIP staps for Sophie:
I decided to add a blueish background to pop out the fur colour:

I chose a sort of air force blue as a complementary of the rust colours in her fur.

It might seem odd to start on the background here, but it helps me to judge the overall finished piece.  Also the background needs to be in before I can add the finishing whisps to the hair.

Here's a closer look at the hair detail on Sophie's left ear.  I normally work left to right across the page so that I'm not leaning on my work, but on this piece I did it the other way around - no idea why....

In the image below you can see that the piece is virtually complate.  Although I signed it I did carry on tweaking for a bit and decided to strengthen the dark behind the edges of the ears. 

and fianlly the finished piece...!

Sophie's choice

I am still loving this Fisher 400 paper, so nice to work on.

My latest commission is this lovely little King Charles Spaniel called Sophie.  I met Sophie and her "mum", Sally, at the Just Dogs Live show in Peterborough.

Sally sent me this wonderful reference shot from a photo shoot she had done with Sophie at Lovell Design.

Reference shots like these are reasonably rare, so it's nice to have so much detail to base the piece on.

Although the colour looks pretty saturated on screen the 'rust' colour in Sophie's fur is a little deeper.  She has a very lustrous coat.  Luckily I took some shots myself so I am able to compare colour to get it just right.

I have found that the best pencils for the outline (depending on the colours you need) are the Derwent sketching pencils which are charcoal or white pastel.  that's what I used here to sketch the outline.

The lighting on this is not the best as the paper is a very light sand colour.

I've got the outline of the basic shape and then immediately started on the eyes and nose area.

Next I have blocked in the main colour areas of the face before starting to add detail to the main features.

In the close up you might just be able to see the lighter areas in the iris of the eyes, which are important to add depth and shape.  I have worked over the base colours with graphite or dark brown for the shadows and darks, sepia, ochre and madder brown for the midtones and flesh & cream for the highlights.

Here I've used a base coat of flesh and ochre over the ears before working over it with the detail of the curls.  The last image, below, is where I'm at so far.  I've just started to add the detail in on the left-hand ear.

More in a couple of days when Sophie will be almost complete...



Another busy month gone...!

Crikey is it really a sign of getting old or are the months passing so quickly because as ever I have so much to do?

What an update I have....

SOFA (Society of Feline artists)

First things first - the SOFA exhibition -  was great!

I sold one of my pieces there - Molly, a silly upside down piece of my sister-in-laws cat acting barmy - as she does.  so I was extremely pleased with that considering it was my first outing at a major London exhibition.  I'm already planning what I will take next year and I'm hoping to put some work before the selection panel for full membership......scary!

Open University study

I have FINISHED my last assignment!! Yeay.  That's a culmination of 6 years hard study - just a 3 hour exam on 15th October and that is my degree course finished.  I have to say although it's been a hard slog it has very much been worth it.  So that's the work stuff over with now I'm going to start the fine art degree that I've always wanted to do!!

Artwork

Told you it's been busy...lol.

If you read my last post you'll know I was working on the little Siamese kittens; well I managed a little bit more before the commissions that I booked at the last couple of shows started to go a bit nuts.  This shows a bit more detail on the first little fella, while in the one below you can see that I've started on the others:

They are very cute and working on the fisher paper is great as you get quite a painterly finish.  Very nice to work on....

Then my email went nuts...

Connie, Jake and Jilly

I know - a namesake!

Caroline contacted me with a rush job.  She had decided that a memorial portrait would fit the bill for a gift, so she sent through the only shots that she had of her chosen subjects:

Jilly, Connie and Jake

This is Jilly (Sadly no longer with us)

Below the Brown Springer at the front is Connie (passed) and the one at the back is Jake

I made a couple of mock ups in photoshop and Caroline settled on this one:

After a little bit of jiggery pokery I managed to lighten the darker areas to try and see some of the detail to add to the piece.  Unfortunately it's not easy to see enough detail when the photos are contrasty so Photoshop can be a real help in getting the reference data that you need.

Here I've started on the outline.  I'm working on Fisher paper usig derwent pastels. Although I find it easer to do the outline in sketching pencils - white, black and tan.

Once I have the basic shapes I can move on to blocking in some colour. I start with the Black & White Spaniel - Jilly. Having laid down the base colour I can then add a little detail with the light grey.

This next image was taken with better lighting conditions, so you gt a better feel for the colour.  I have started to  add base colour to Connie now.  As I work on each dog I add more detail into the background.  You can see that the basic grass tones are starting to build up now.

In this next image you can see that the detail in the grass is beginning to build and form a very solid foundation.  I love the light and dark areas and the looks on the dogs faces they are realy alert in these images.  Here I've started work on Jake who has a slightly lighter coat which is catching the light very nicely.

Just a little more work to be done on the grass and a bit more detail in the dogs' fur and we'll be done.

Next time...

The Bengal 6 have been framed!

Another commission WIP - Sophie the Cavalier King Charles Spaniel

And possily more Siamese kitties

Bye

Jilly

x

Fisher paper!

Why haven't I used it before????
So everyone was raving about Fisher paper in the Pet Portraits forum and I figured that I needed to try it.

As you do, I had great fun buying some stock and then carefully put it away, because I had commissions, study assignments, art college assignments not to mention other work stuff.....you know what it's like.

My reward for finishing my penultimate OU assignment was that I would have some time to 'play' with the Fisher.

A couple of posts back you might recall this delightful shot:

This weekend I had 2 days of bliss at the Coontica show in Rickmamsworth and started on the piece - on Fisher...

So the verdict:

Well,  Fisher paper, for those of you who haven't tried it, is simply 800 grit sandpaper (it says so on the back)

I had tried Pastelmat and really didn't like it, so becuase Fisher seemed similar I guess I was a little reticent.  I'm used to working on velour and I love the finish.

I got set up and sketched the outline.  Then I started on the pastel - blimey you only need to touch the paper and half the pencil is worn away on to it.

I can completely understand why anyone who comes from Fisher paper finds velour difficult or a chore. Compared to Fisher, it is quite hard work getting the colour onto the velour - at times you really have to scrub.

What surprised me the most is the speed which which the piece started to develop.

Although I wasn't sure for the first hour, I very quickly got used to the change in technique and now I'm a complete convert. I love the ease with which you can render detail on this paper.

As ever I started with the eyes and then the rest of the facial features.  At first I wasn't sure about the 'painterly' look that I was getting, but I soon got used to it and now I'd even say I prefer it!

When I ordered the Fisher I also bought the blenders. Basically they are cut up pieces of cork matting! Have to say after the first couple of rubs I have binned them. I found that they left brown marks on the paper and are completely the wrong shape to blend fine detail, so I stuck to my blending stubs which worked perfectly.And this is where this post ends - an almost finished tiny Siamese kitty....

The cat show where I started this piece was at the Royal Masonic School for girls - a very swanky boarding school in Rickmansworth.  Such a lovely building, but thearea that I was placed in didn't have such good lighting, so the pictures are a little yellow cast (even though I had set up my camera for flourescent light!)  After I had blended the head colour a little, I moved on to the body.  They are such cute tiny chaps, you can almost feel the little bones under that thin fur ;0)

You can see a bit of the difference here between blended and un-blended:

Next post 2 more kitties completed

 

Molly & Jasper finished - again....

I know this might seem a little bizarre, but I wasn't sure about the background on this pieces even whn I declared it finished.

Then I posted on Wet Canvas and a few of the guys suggested that the background could be darker.
so I fiddled and here's the result.

the image is not as good as it could be as the piece is now in a frame, so it was difficult to not capture the reflections as it's very sunny this morning.  Anyway I like the results - it's a bit different...