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Edward Hobson
BA, AFC
True-to-Life Pastel Paintings of Wildlife and Wild Places |
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"Shompole Waterhole - No. 1"
Karibu sana! You are most welcome!
My artwork typically begins with one of my photographs. This was taken at Shompole Nature Reserve, Kenya, in November 2005. Greg Du Toit, the manager at Shompole Lodge, built the great photographer's blind at the waterhole that made this shot - and the painting - possible.
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Next I select the area of the photograph that I want to use for my painting. In this case, I wanted to really focus on her eyes so I cropped the image fairly tightly.
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Because I'm lefthanded and I like to work on a flat surface, I TRY to tell myself to start in the upper right corner of the paper - but I don't always listen. In this case I first put down the foundation pigments for her coat and roughed in some of the darker shadow areas. Then I kind of got focused on her paw so I just went with the flow...
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More refinement on her paw and the left side of her face and a lot of time spent on the eyes. For some reason I was working left-to-right this time. Also, it was the first time I used a "bridge" to keep my hand from dragging across the painting.
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With most of the details completed on the face, then I moved to the terrain on her right, trying to keep the background indistinct so as not to distract from her intense gaze. I used some touches of Sennelier iridescent pastels for hightlights in her eyes and to give some "glisten" to the dirt at the water's edge. Now all that's left is her tongue and the water...
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Voila! The finished product. A labor of love that I hope will bring a bit of the splendor of Africa to you, wherever you are. Asante sana - thank you very much for visiting!
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