2"X 3" miniature portrait in silverpoint on parchment.

2"X 3" miniature in silverpoint on parchment.

"At the Fair" 4"X 4" Silverpoint on 140lb Arches hot pressed coated in 8 layers of Golden Silverpoint Ground

Miniature portrait-silverpoint on parchment 2"X3"

"Beau" in silverpoint with added watercolour

This portrait of equine author Tena Bastian's stallion Beau (@TenaBastian or www.tenabastian.com) was completed from a photo that Tena sent me. I altered the background to improve lines in the composition but did my best to capture a likeness of Beau.  This is tough to do from one photo but Tena had other photos of Beau on her website and that helped as well. It's about 8" X  12" with 6 layers of silverpoint ground on stretched 140lb arches hot pressed paper. I've included a picture before and after adding colour to the silverpoint. I'd love to hear any opinions on the addition of colour to the picture.

Child with Rabbit 4"X 5"

This small piece is silverpoint on 8 coats of ground. I was pretty happy with the darks. Those extra coats of ground really made a difference in the values. (You can see this if you scroll down to my earlier post of my retriever in silverpoint.) For me, silverpoint is all about portraying surface texture. You can't smudge it so, like pen & ink, you vary the line to create tone. 

As requested, I'm posting a larger version of the pen & ink on my avatar. This is a drawing of my neighbour's foal "Marcus".  I used a crow quill nib and Winsor & Newton waterproof ink. I love the character of line I get from dip pens and never use anything else. The piece is 11 x 14 and it is drawn on Strathmore 100% cotton paper.