Shih Tzu portrait sketch

Some art from this week.

1. 'Shih Tzu dog', 12 by 9 ins., pan pastels, Murano paper

2. 'Is there not a song', mixed media, art journal

3. 'New small art journal.' 6 by 4 ins. mixed media

4. 'Apollo says...', 6 by 8 ins., mixed media, new small art journal.

Photos 3 and 4.

I started a new small journal which I am using as 'five-finger-exercises' to get in the mood for the day's art.  Its good to have a little journal like this when you can't decide what to do for the day.  Painting in this book often puts me in the mood or right mindset for art for the day.  

I went with blue and orange for the first pages.  

I was inspired to draw this particular face (head position) after reading Bridgman, 'Heads, features, faces', from Dover publications.  Its a fairly inexpensive book which covers how to draw faces very well.

I had already collaged on the sun symbol.  It reminded me of Apollo and so I developed that idea, which was fun.

Photo 2.

A page in my mainly faces art journal.  This is A4 size.  This page went through a lot of re-painting...it started off purple and gradually changed to orange.  

The face was painted in acrylics to start off with but I decided to redo it in ink on book text which I collaged over the original.  I like the ink on text page better as it contrasts with the painted background. 

Then I found a little inky face which I added to the bottom right side. I thought it looked like he was asking the question that Id previously collaged on:-  'Is there not a song in your own tongue for a great day such as this?'

A reminder to paint in your own way perhaps?

Photo 1. Shih Tzu portrait

From a photo on wetcanvas for the WDE art project last weekend.  I used my new set of pan pastels for this portrait.  

Shih tzu's are lovely little dogs.  My yorkie Toby had a Shih Tzu best friend.  They loved to romp in the park.

Here's my new set of 20 pastels.

They are lovely to use because they are fairly dust free.  They are good for journal page backgrounds because they are a dry medium and don't wrinkle thin pages.  They may be good to use as under-painting for full blown soft pastel portraits...have not tried this yet!

Hope you are having a great week!

Bye for now.