Priley Riley, Oil pastel drawing of a bearded dragon 4, 5th May 2014

I wanted to try something different so I decided to do an oil pastel drawing using different shades of just one colour. I chose blue because it’s considered a masculine colour so it represents how Zeus was my boy.

Priley Riley, Oil pastel drawing of a bearded dragon 3, 4th May 2014

When I was about 11 years old I got a pet bearded dragon called Zeus. I started university last September and the following month he passed away, aged 8. I still miss him dearly so I have spent the past couple of days doing oil pastel drawings of him on A4 paper, working from the same photo, shown below.

Priley Riley, New positive cast, 29th- 30th April 2014

As the university term has started again I have been able to continue working on my life cast. I have spent the past couple of days making the positive cast shown in the photo above using the original cast taken from me. I am very happy with how this cast has turned out; unlike my last attempt, this one has been completely undamaged by the process.

Priley Riley, Sketches, 15th- 22nd of April 2014

 

Between the 15^th and 18^th of April I stayed with my fiancé and his family, where I did a series of sketches from life of their two new West Highland Terrier puppies. Four of these sketches are shown above. On the 19^th of April I went to the Veronese exhibition at the National Gallery in London, followed by a visit to the National Portrait Gallery. On the 20^th and 21^st I stayed with my family where I drew the family’s pets from life; two sketches of our Brazilian Salmon Pink Bird-eating Tarantula are shown beneath the puppy drawings, and the two beneath these are of our Chilean Rose Tarantula. I was able to make a lot of sketches of our tarantulas but haven’t been as lucky with our snakes as one of them, a boa constrictor which is shown in a sketch above, has hidden himself away for most of my visit and our corn snake has been permanently on the move. I did a quick sketch of my mum from life on the 21^st, which can be seen above, and yesterday I returned to the National Gallery and National Portrait Gallery for another look around. Whilst at the National Gallery I drew a figure in Moretto da Brescia’s painting The Madonna and Child with Saints and Francisco de Zurbaran's painting Saint Francis in Meditation- one of my favourite paintings. Both of my sketches from the gallery are shown above.

Priley Riley, Paintings of people walking, 9th-13th April 2014

I have spent the past few days doing quick paintings in my sketchbook from photos. I liked the paintings of two people walking through a tunnel the most, because of the extreme lighting in the tunnel, so I painted this image onto a 16 x 20 inch piece of cotton canvas fabric, shown above. I painted it in black and white to emphasize the chiaroscuro (contrast in light and dark). I used both acrylic and watercolour paint for it because I was interested to see how well these two water-based paints could be combined.

Priley Riley, Sketches of people walking, 31st March- 8th April 2014