Alexandra’s write up about Boris My Bengal……

I was really over the moon to receive runner up in the LAC Competition 2013 for “Boris my Bengal”
My name is Alexandra, and I live in Maidstone, Kent. I have been married to Alan, a forestry consultant, for 33 yrs and have a daughter, Lisa, and two grandsons.

I have 3 cats, one Persian and two moggies; Boris was a fun loving, mischievous Bengal, who enjoyed playing with other cats and was also very friendly. Unfortunately he developed a tumour and had to be put down last year and it was a great loss. The drawing is my way of remembering him.
I am a self taught graphite pencil artist, and have only been drawing seriously since 2010. I was given “Drawing from line to life” by Mike Sibley, for Christmas and was so inspired by the detail in his drawings that I decided that I was going to adopt the same approach.

I used Mellotex white 250gsm paper, Staedlter 780 clutch pencils (2H, B, and 2B), and my trusted Blu-tack eraser. When I draw, I imagine that every 1” of my drawing could be a picture on its own right. It takes me quite a long time to draw as I want the viewer to see the detail and more than just pencil strokes. I think I spent about 12 weeks drawing Boris until I was happy with the texture of the fur.

I enrolled on the Coloured Pencil course with Julie Douglas, and have nearly completed the first set of assignments. I want to be able to still use my graphite but also incorporate colour. The amount of colour work that I have done so far isn’t much and I am getting to grips with the very different approach needed. With graphite it’s a case of using all the different shades of black, but with colour there is so much more to think about.

Finally I would just like to say thank you to Julie for all her advice, and I can’t wait to get back to my drawings.

Thank you

Alex