In the Studio

Hello and happy Friday! In this new series, I will show you what I am currently working on “in the studio”. I’ll share my work in progress shots and what I’m thinking about the process and/or supplies I’m using.

This week I have this Airedale Terrier on the drawing board.

I had a client request an Airedale piece. They weren’t very specific, so I’ve decided to draw up two different artworks, one in color (above) and another in graphite (stay tuned), in hopes that the client will want both pieces *fingers crossed*.

This one is Faber Castell Polychromos colored pencil on Clairefontaine PastelMat, with the background done in PanPastels. The more I use PanPastels, the more I fall in love with them. So doing the background in them was a no-brainer for me. I did, however, find that my glassine that I use to shield my hand from the paper would put scratch marks into the panpastel (kind of pictured above, if you look closely) and I would have to rework that area later. I’m sure this problem would have been fixed if I just would have used Spectrafix during the process, but alas. I also used way too much Zest-it when blending and as you can see very clearly above the ear and below the beard, it leaked onto the PanPastel. All of these “problems” really aren’t a problem at all though, as PanPastel is extremely forgiving and very easy to rework.

NOTE: You can see short videos of my process working on this piece and others on my Instagram account @m.m.fineartstudio

After adding multiple layers of colored pencil on the dog itself, I brought in my Slice Tool ceramic blade cutter to carve out the fur texture. This is one of my favorite ways to show detail in fur. After I used the slice tool I went back in with more and even more layers, to bring out definition.

COME BACK NEXT FRIDAY TO SEE THE FINISHED PIECE. Can’t wait that long? Head over to Instagram then, you impatient child. (heehee)