This Little Piggy……
Hello,
I thought it might be interesting to start a blog about the different coloured pencil portraits I have either been commissioned to draw or I am drawing for my own pleasure, or perhaps a tutorial I am following, or maybe this will be a personal diary of my artistic endeavours.
A brief outline of my art story has already been provided and so I am not going to cook my cabbage twice!! (a saying my Dad would often spout whenever my cloth ears did not hear him!!)
I have been a patreon of Bonny Snowdon (the most amazing artist) Since June 2020 and thanks to Bonny my coloured pencil skill levels have improved to such a degree that I have finally taken the plunge, created a website and hope to one day make art my full time job.
Please go and check out her website but more importantly go check out her art. Link below:
https://www.bonnysnowdonfineart.co.uk/gallery
In January 2020 Bonny decided to do a gorgeous piglet as one of her tutorials and rather than use the piglet in question I decided to trawl the free reference websites, looking for a pig image that took my fancy (i mean who doesn’t love a piglet) which I could draw whilst listening to Bonny’s tips and tricks.
I found the image below on Pixabay, a free reference photo website
So away I went, using new pencils, especially the newly purchased, Oyster Pink ( such a great smoothing pencil) and I was loving it. Sometimes the pencils flow and it all works so well, you feel in control and mostly its just so satisfying not to mention absorbing
Does life ever run smoothly? I work as a full-time contractor for various Local Authorities and following a dry spell in Autumn 2019 I took a permanent position with one particular Local Authority, which did not work out, mainly because i couldn’t cope with being trapped in a permanent job, preferring to be my own boss, deciding when I work, for who I work and how long i work for. Trying to get 4 weeks holiday when you are a permanent employee can be problematic but i can’t see the point in going to Asia for a fortnight! Not to mention condensing my 37 hours per week into a 4 day week and having all day Friday to focus on art.
So there I was without a job but not really caring because I was following Bonny Snowdon’s tutorials and learning so many techniques and tips about coloured pencils when the worst of news… In late January 2020 my Dad had a fall, at 90 years old he had become very frail and doddery. Diagnosed with Parkinson’s he lived with my Mum (79) in a small village in Wiltshire, a stones throw from Stonehenge.
Well, what an eye-opener, my Dad, it turned out had Lewes Bodies Dementia (the same illness Robbie Williams had) things were not good. I wasn’t working, so it was decided amongst the 4 siblings that i should go to Wiltshire and stay with my parents whilst some sort of Social Services care package was put in place, what a joke and needless to say the care package never materialised.
I stayed there for over 2.5 months (it was hell for all of us including my poor father) he went into hospital where we were allowed to visit him, then a care home (briefly) we couldn’t visit because of Covid and he really declined, giving up in the end on the 19th April 2020, just 18 days after his 91st birthday. We buried him on the 11th May 2020 with just 7 of us at the crematorium, couldn’t have the whole family inside, some of them having to remain outside, hardly a celebration of his life.
There were only 2 occasions at Mum & Dad’s where I tried to do more of the piglet drawing but I just couldn’t focus because of what was going on. But, once home and back at the shack with my partner, Sid i was able to focus my grief into my art. I got to use all the pretty colours, pinks, purples, blues and reds from the Fabre Castell Polychromos range, some from the Caran D’arch range & some of the new Derwent Lightfasts
Persistence and patience, trying not to hurry or rush and having such a clear, in focus reference photograph were key elements to my piglets portrait turning out so well, including my desire to draw it.. sometimes an image just shouts out to be drawn!! Wish I could’ve shown my Dad the finished result, I’m sure he would’ve have been secretly proud of me
As a Bonny Snowdon patreon I have monthly critiques with Bonny and in ?2020 i entered my image of the piglets into the monthly critique. Well, it was great, Bonny said some wonderful things about my piglets and not just references to bacon butties!! No, Bonny said she would like a print when I get some done (I have had a few done and am going to sell prints at some point, once i have my shop set up) ooh ooh ooh now that is praise indeed from an outstanding artist and I was, still am, chuffed to bits.
Feeling as though I am riding that wave crest!! I decided to enter the newly named Trotters Inc. (just sounded so right) into the Pencil Box submission of the American Color Pencil magazine, hopefully the September 2020 edition, well, I missed that (who knew…Pacific something or other time zone isn’t like ours?!?)
Entered Trotters Inc. into October 2020 edition of Color Pencil magazine and was one of the four pieces of coloured pencil art chosen out of just under a thousand entries as part of the magazines pencil box submission and Trotters Inc. is featured on the back page.
Amazing, what a buzz. Just goes to show that grief, anguish and despair when channelled into something you love can help create something truly amazing.
That turned out to be quite the ramble! I hope you enjoyed reading my first blog and do hope you will come back for more, please leave any comments you might have about, well, anything really. I look forward to reading them.
Bye for now, i will be back…
Sarah