A little thank you...

These two drawings were made as a thank you present for two kind ladies from my local library that saved me a lot of money. I won't go into details but let's just say it involved 6 library DVDs and my car roof! :-p

Pencil on paper. H, 2B and 4B plus a blending stump.
I'm quite pleased with the cherries, but quite a bit less so with the strawberry. I think it needs more contrast. (Too late now of course as i don't have them anymore). The strawberry is also a redo as I botched up my first attempt by trying to add chalk pastels for colour having completed a full tonal drawing as you see here. So don't try that one! I wonder what the cherries would look the size of a watermelon!! I think I'll give that a go some time. I've always had a great urge to paint a still life of fruit, but overly massive. An apple 3m x3m for example! I have a 1m x 1m canvas waiting beside me here for a first go.

Protea Cardinal.

This post is not a tutorial I'm afraid as I didn't photograph it in progress. However, it is another painting I've been working on recently and deserves to go up here.

The painting is of a Protea Cardinal flower, which I believe is a native flower of South Africa. It was lying around at my mother's house when I went to visit her last month, and so I photographed it for future reference. It's oil on canvas and quite large being 16" across by 48" high. (Intended to be upright, it works on it's side too)! I originally bought the canvas for a panoramic landscape.

So here it is: (click on the image to enlarge) The photo doesn't really do it justice, so I will take some more piccies outside tomorrow when the sun comes out.



(WORKS STILL IN PROGRESS 02-08-09: A Series of four and a commission for some apples).
So Stay tuned!