Hereford Bull

He is gorgeous Nick, how long did it take you to draw such a marvellously detailed image?

Thanks Ros. I recall that he took about nine hours, maybe ten. I used a pastel stick to lay down most of the block colour and then moved in with the pencils to detail the textures. There was also heavy use of a paper stump.

With my pastel drawings i find that soft pastel pencils wear down realy quickly so can only do relatively few strokes before the point of the pencil wears down, and of course there doesn't seem to be any harder tipped pastel pencils and the pastel sticks soon loose edges as well, you must have found that problem with your drawing nick

Ros ; yes I did. In fact I had to replace the brown and white pencils. I always keep a spare white although I have learned to try and preserve it for the key highlights. The base colour for all of the bull was 'wheat'. I then built up the colours in layers and used a blending stump and a tortillon to both spread the colour and push it into the tooth of the paper. I sharpen the pencils with a knife and keep the point with very fine sandpaper. I have tried harder pastel but personally find them too coarse. Regards Nick