Highland Cow Portrait Progress Pictures
Well, this is a first for me; my first ever blog! Welcome, and thanks for checking in!
For my first foray into writing a blog I thought I’d start with my latest piece of work, the ‘highland cow with no name yet’. This one started earlier this year when I got brave and took myself up to the Highland Show, all by myself, like a grown up, independent woman! It took a lot of gumption as I’m not a bold solo traveller but I had a great time and was blessed with a really hot and sunny day. I headed for the highland pony classes, the sheep and the cows as there were so many gorgeous animals to photograph! I took hundreds of photos and, as is usual, only a few had that special something. I found this gorgeous highland cow at the end of the line and I crouched down with my camera, not realising I was near her food bowls and so she paid me great interest, enabling me to take some lovely photos. As it was a hot day there were many fans blowing on the bovines and so her hair was blowing in the wind, like a model on a photoshoot!
This portrait is created on Clairfonteine pastelmat, is a bit larger than A3 and painted using pastel pencils with pan pastels for the background. I haven’t used pastels for many years so it was quite enjoyable to revisit that pencil drawer. Lots and lots of layers on this, and you might be able to see from the time lapse, how it becomes darker then lighter as the colour builds up to cover the tooth on the paper. For the highlights to pop out there needs to be a corresponding darker area as the lights are only as light as the darks are dark. I always begin a picture by laying down the dark and light areas using soft, circular and line strokes, without including details as they come later. The subsequent layers then refine these blocks of basic colour to form smaller bundles of hair and other textures. I think the rope halter is my favourite bit and this came together quite easily as it’s formed of just 3 shades of grey, with the dark greys defining the recessed parts and the lighter grey being the highlighted areas of the rope. In all, this painting is roughly 35 hours of pencil work. Here’s a bit of time lapse video for you …
This portrait has been painted onto a piece of Clairfonteine Pastelmat which is a bit bigger than the standard A3 and will make a striking piece of art once mounted and framed and eventually be around A2 size. I will be doing a limited number of giclee prints from this painting, and maybe some greetings cards too.
The original will be for sale for £450 plus the cost of mounting and framing which I expect to be around £100-120 as I use an excellent, professional framer and this piece will be also be framed with artglass which is non-reflective and UV protective, ensuring that this dear highland cow will remain vibrant and beautiful on the wall for many, many years to come.
Please contact me if you would like to buy my beautiful highland cow with no name … yet, either the original drawing or giclee prints.