A weekend of drawing Louis

Those of you who visit here regularly may be aware of my little dog Louis, who is my dear, loyal little friend. For those who are not, here is a photo of him.

I have made a number of attempts over the past couple of years to capture Louis in drawing, watercolour pencil etc. It has always been my aim to capture the essence of him, his spirit, personality and mischievousness. This has never happened.

Here is a pen drawing from August this year. You can tell it is him, but it doesn't really capture him. 0.3 unipin fine line pen on moleskine.

And here is another of him from a few weeks earlier. Better but I wasn't brave enough to try his face. Watercolour pencil on moleskine.

As I live in a small country town considered reasonably isolated, especially from tutors of the art world, we are fortunate enough to receive funding via the RADF (Regional Arts Development Fund) and this provides the money to pay for tutors through the Flying Arts Programme. We are lucky enough to have a Flying Arts tutor visit Roma twice a year and this weekend was Flying Arts weekend. We were able to enjoy a weekend class "Drawing from Nature" with tutor Sharon Muir.

Yesterday we worked on various methods and techniques of using charcoal mainly on cartridge paper. Here is the result of my work yesterday. It is Louis again and finally, I have captured him. Here he is in all his arrogance and love.

This is charcoal on cartridge paper and I am quite happy with the outcome.