Bonnie
Pastel pencil on paper
42 X 29cm (16.5 x 11.7”)
Private collection
I
was delighted when a good friend commissioned me to paint Bonnie, her
sweet and gentle West Highland White terrier.
However
I didn’t quite realise what a challenge I had set myself. My friend
was particularly fond of a pet passport photo of Bonnie which was all
of 5.9 x 4.2 cm (2.3 x 1.7”) in size!
Undeterred
I forged ahead only to discover that the closer I looked at her white
fur the more colours I could discern – sky blue-white, baby pink-white,
lemon-white, apricot-white, you get my drift . . .
In the end I used
a total of 36 different pastel colours for her white fur. This is why
we like art, photographs often subdue the subtlety of colour that can
be seen by the human eye.
