KATJAS WORK IN PROGRESS BLOG

This is a pencil portrait I created recently for my sister who wanted to have her self and her boyfriend drawn  and give away as a gift to Johan. Its a one year anniversary gift and the drawing is in size 29 x 42cm.

For two days now I have been working on the King Charles Spaniel painting, but it’s slowly progressing. I will continue to work on the painting tomorrow, but next step won’t be seen before next week.

pencil portraits

Pencil portrait

I’m posting a new portrait I have been drawing on today. This is step 1 of Dingo and Kassi in Coloured pencils. The portrait is in size 29 x 42 cm. Rest of this week I will be working with the oil painting Robin and Tuffe.

Two dogs in colored pencil - step1

So I finally finished the montage pencil drawing with four small images. Even though they are small I think its important to try to draw as much detail as possible. I will send a bigger scan to the client.

Montage pet portraits

Close-up of final completed drawing

I also recieved a photo of Taisho along with his framed drawing from my client a few days ago. Thank you, I love it!

Now I will start with a watercolor painting of a mom with her baby. The photo I recieved is pretty old and in poor quality, so lets see what I can do with it. I bought new watercolor brushes and colors some months ago so it will be fun to try them out.

Now back to work!

For some days I have been working on a new website (yet to be completed) and the montage Malinois pencil drawing. I completed the middle portrait and the muzzle one on the side. The first drawing I drew was the decoy along with the Malinois jumping to bite. All the drawings are pretty small, so I have to rule out some detail. It only makes sense, otherwise the final result wouldn’t look good enough. Anyway, I hope Marc is happy with the three first drawings.

Now I will go ahead to draw the final picture of the composition…

Yesterday I drew the first and smallest picture in the montage drawing and its fully completed. Its a very small drawing, cca. 18×13cm. I will now move on to the aggression head study in the middle and complete it. Im actually looking forward to that one.

Today I will move on with working on a new website. I have allot of work ahead of me so bye until next montage pencil drawing update.

Step two of Malinois drawing

I’m finally uploading the five of Albin and Nicke, the two horses in Colored pencils. I have also almost finished step 6 which I probably will upload tomorrow. The reason it takes so long is that I’m working with my future plans at the same time and sometimes I get a little bit too much into what I’m working with which is a downside because I tend to exaggerate with my working hours, especially when I’m working with something on the computer and the time just fly away. When I paint or draw I do the same. It’s better to leave a drawing or painting aside and let it rest a while because at the end you can start see in double.

Horses in colored pencils

Albin and Nicke in Colored pencils

So I have been working with the colored pencil portrait of horses Albin and Nicke. This is a big drawing, in fact the biggest size available for commissioning from me. It will take some time to complete this drawing and I can’t wait to see it when it’s finished. Now I will continue working with Taisho and complete that drawing before I will continue with this colored pencil drawing. I have decided to start working with one painting or drawing at the time, otherwise it feels like noting is done at all and I need to concentrate mainly on one artwork at the time as I’m also working with design. My drawings are very time-consuming; it really doesn’t pay off to draw them because at the end I’m working for pennies or ören here in Sweden even though my drawings aren’t really affordable for the customers. Well, it’s hard to have too expensive prices these days. But for me it’s more important to do what I love, it’s not about the money at all. My husband has a regular job so it’s easier for me.

Because the drawing is so big I don’t scan the steps, I don’t want to destroy the paper with moving it from the easel to the scanner to much.

Step 1 of horse portraits in colored pencil

So this is Taisho, the graceful dog I’m currently working on. I never posted the first step in my blog so I’m uploading both steps at the same time. I don’t show the entire paper area on the earliest stages because there is nothing but a few lines over there. I’m scanning the areas where there is some work done since it’s not interesting to see only lines. The reference photograph is perfect really, so this drawing will be beautiful. I even decided to create this one in print quality and the client agreed to my question about if I could use it for open edition prints. So this drawing will actually be my first open edition print. Of course it will take around 70 hours to complete this drawing.

So here is Taisho…

Graphite pencil drawing of Dog - step2

Graphite pencil drawing of Dog - step1

I’m so sloppy when it comes to post in my blog. It can take a while in between the posts but better late then never. It has been quite fun to work with this drawing. At first I didn’t want to create a drawing out of the reference photograph because I thought it wasn’t the quality I needed. Later I thought I can take on the commission but let the client know that the dark areas will look like on the photo and it was nothing else I could do with it, since there were only blank dark areas in this photo and nothing else to take from it. The client said it’s all right and luckily the drawing turned out really well. The client has already received the pencil drawing and did let me know about how happy he is with it. The portrait is a very late birthday gift for Hamid which is portrayed much younger then he is today. I hope he will like it too.

The client who commissioned the oil painting of Duck tolling retrievers Gully and Jixxy rushed with the painting to a local framer as soon as she received the painting. She chose a really cool frame that suits the painting perfectly. It looks like the frame is part of the painting actually, same kind of colors as the background. Nice! Thanks for sending me the photo of Jixxy next to the painting!

Don’t forget to scroll down to see step four of Hamid also.

Next week I will start to give private classes to two “students”. One young girl and a lady that wants to learn how to create pet drawings in colored pencils. These two lives from 30 minutes to 1 hour drive from me and they asked me them selves. They have waited quite some time for me to let them know when they can start. Maybe I will take two more students at a later stage for art classes if I will find this rewarding in any way.

Clients photograph of framed oil painting

Pencil drawing of Hamid - close-up

Pencil portrait of Hamid - final scan

Today I finally managed to complete the colored pencil portrait of Rottweiler Jack. This drawing is very small, size A4 and the reference photo was a bit blurry because it was originally taken in full body. I still think the drawing looks nice, what do you think?