The Marble Dog - a work in progress

"The Marble Dog" - a work in progress
coloured pencil on Saunders Waterford Hot Press paper
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

This drawing is one of the pieces I've been working on recently including while I was away seeing family. It's a development of the marble dog in the V&A cafe which I sketched recently and is still officially a work in progress - mainly because I'm thinking of trying it again on Arches HP. However, I've had the dog form checked out by Gayle, my UK dog expert who I saw earlier this week. She's given it the thumbs up!

The drawing, unlike the sketch, involves a lot of different colours (Polychromos and Pablo coloured pencils) but with the aim of ending up with mostly analogous and neutral hues and some fairly subtle changes in tonal values. Plus I'm trying to keep the overall finish somewhat sketchier than usual. To do this involves me in carving the marble dog using my battery eraser and getting layers and layers of subtle colour changes. My current thinking is that this might work better on Arches and consequently I'm wondering about trying a second version and, at the same time, trying also to knock back some of the colour in the people and to make them even sketchier. In part, it's about continuing down the path of developing the way I want to work in future on more finished pieces. I know what I want it to look like in my head - the challenge is in getting the materials and eye-hand co-ordination to cooperate!

Doing this drawing has also made me realise that I need to work out a new way of presenting more finished drawings of interiors on my website (including worked up versions of my restaurant and cafe scene sketches) - and current thinking is that I create one in 2007. The existing gallery - which is mainly sketchbook drawings - is here.

My trip up north and back became a little complicated due to the fact I had a nasty dose of food poisoning while away which delayed my return plus dense fog made my journey over to Yorkshire and then back to London 'interesting'. I've got a sketch of a Christmas wreath to show you before Christmas which I also produced while I was away - maybe Christmas Eve?

Links:

• Drawings of Interiors by Katherine Tyrrell
  
• All the best cafes have a marble dog........

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