1st tip- Noticing

My Art teacher, as a teenager, gave me the advice to look for patterns in whatever was my subject.

Over time I started to observe curves, twists, imperfections which were perfection to me, in everything I saw even down to a rock.

My beautiful boy Milo (the dog) is a good example he has straight hair on first looking, but then when you look closer there are kinks, waves, small and longs parts of hair.

This lead me onto noticing his colours. Milo has a chocolate colour coat and apparently there is a hot chocolate called Milo ( which I love). When you look closer at Milo I see his aging and one could say grey and white are colours of years of living and wisdom.

I also noticed the blonde, almost orange tints in his hair which has the occasional red that floats through. Particularly on a sunny day his chocolate colour totally changes.

If I am drawing, painting, sculpturing or using charcoal I always spend time noticing and noting the way a face shape is formed, how the hair flows, the different colours forming in my eyes and awareness. I also look at the features noticing the expressions whether that is from a human, animal or what the human has tried to project into an object like a mug!

My first tip is spend time noticing before doing anything!