Tasha

Whilst settled in Droitwich Spa for the winter I have been doing quite a lot of painting and sketching. Earlier last year when we were travelling near Rugby we met a boating couple who asked me to paint their dog. She's a lovely affectionate rescue dog, Tasha. They didn't have any decent photos of her so I snapped this one just as it was starting to rain and Tasha was going back inside their boat. Unfortunately we had to travel on and didn't see them again, but if we ever do I'll give them this painting which I've recently finished. Oil on canvas 12" x 15"

Donato

From a photo I found on the internet - oil on canvas 15 x 15 inches.

Zipper

I found this photo of Zipper the dog on a great website called Paint my Photo Painting the water was a challenge. Oil on linen canvas 8" x 6".

Daler Murano paper

I'm continuing to compare pastel papers. For this portrait I've used Daler Murano paper and the dog is from a photo I found on the internet and his name is apparently 'Buddy'. At first, compared to the Fisher 400 paper, I found this paper a bit flimsy and insubstantial, and nearly gave up. But I persevered, and found that I actually really like it. I used a mixture of hard and soft pastels and pastel pencils. I recently bought about 40 new colours - mostly greys and browns, from the Derwent range of pastel pencils, and they certainly came in very handy for this portrait.