Black on Grey on White

Hurricane sprinkled in colour. Simply the best way of breathing in beauty, soaking in power, of falling in love...

of my comfort zone. I went big and warped the rules of composition as much as possible. I craved for a new angle.  An angle that would emphasise all the strength and power of this amazing horse but also an angle that would defy compositional rules and regulations. Pinned to the edge was one of my hardest challenges yet.  The knowledge of my subject (we've met over seven times on the drawing board) and the energy he ignites in me kept me smiling and my pencils fervantly scribbling. The rest was hard, very hard. The proportions were hard, the dynamics were hard,  cracking rules to create drama was hard. Operating for weeks out of a zone of familiarity, uncomfortably hard. Stepping back, pencils paused, and calling it done: hard.  Letting it out of the safety of the studio into the world to face reactions: super hard! One thing though that is in no way hard:  endorsing the claim ...  pencils rock ! Pinned to th...

Finding myself all caught up in totally new terrain has been frustrating yet stimulating, unhinging yet grounding. In a wee winter nutshell: inspiring! My new Paper Clone had to be fun, difficult and unusual. I had a picture in my mind. My pencils had another at their tips. I managed, with the invaluable help from a groups of artist friends (thank you so much!), to learn from my mistakes, to bust new barriers and to bring "Unstuck" to life. "Unstuck" Pencil on Paper 48x42 cm Sheona Hamilton-Grant. All rights reserved

Ever wondered if, we artists, like writers, have to tackle the notorious "page blanche" syndrome? The big white gaping blank page hole? We do. Sometimes. These infuriating times, times when everything you know goes blank, do plague our creative muses. Paper Clone and " Uncrushable " are results of blank moments. Symbolic pieces. Drawings tentatively touching the third dimension. Nothing is quite as it seems. Nothing crushed remains crushed forever. Strength and beauty always rise to the surface. "Uncrushable" Pencil on Paper 42x50 cm 1550 Euros Sheona Hamilton-Grant. All rights reserved .

Mea culpa. Stalled my blog!!!! Life went into overdrive. Foot slipped off the clutch, releasing it too way quickly, timing went up the creak and the word flow came to one terrifying standstill, lasting not days or even weeks but months. Two to be exact. Neglect like this has not happened in the 6 years I've been blogging. Quite shocking! Behind the scenes, in the depth of the studio, my pencils have been active, totally ignoring (and forgiving) my poor blogging skills and have been working scribbling near to non-stop. No bad driving going on in the studio.... Instead new explorations have been concocted, fun combinations have emerged. The result a combined rendering of my favourite subject ( Hurricane ) and favourite substrate ( paper )... Fingers crossed life resume a touch of normality ...soon. "Paper Clone" Pencil on Paper, 35x49cm Sheona Hamilton-Grant. All rights reserved

Dicke Tour Pencil on Paper, 50x46 cm Sheona Hamilton-Grant. All rights reserved. Limited Edition  Prints available. ( Run of 99) This tutorial is dedicated to all of you who have asked so very nicely and waited so very patiently all these very long months for an answer to the question “how do you do it?” So without further ado and with great rejoicing (include sharp drum roll here*) I present  the various steps that led me to my latest commissioned drawing  “Dicke Tour .“ THE COMMISSION: Produce a drawing for and of the North Rhine Westphalian Stud’s annual stallion show. Third image in a series of five. To be produced as a Limited Edition Print. Run of 99 quality Fine Art Prints. TOOLS CHOSEN: Mellotex paper (large sheet) Staedler pencil 2B & HB Staedler Clutch F & 6B Blue Tack Derwent SuperPoint pencil sharpener SIZE OF IMAGE: Large (for added impact) 50x46 cm THE PROCESS : Stage 1 ...

"Complicity" Graphite on Paper. 2009 Sheona Hamilton-Grant. All rights reserved There is great rejoicing and lots of strange woops: Complicity and Hurricane have been strutting their stuff at the American Art Awards and have come home with rosettes. "Complicity" won the dry media category (pencil, charcoal and ink) and came in second in Human Realism. Yeah! "Hurricane" Graphite on Paper. 2010 Sheona Hamilton-Grant. All rights reserved "Hurricane" came in a cool second in Animal realism. Cooool! The icing on the cake: Quality Time won last year! "Quality Time" Graphite on Paper. 2008 Sheona Hamilton-Grant. All rights reserved Once again, one year on , I'm still so very chuffed, honoured as well as being over the moon at seeing graphite making a stand. Pencils just rock !!! Happy dances and cheery waves from the walls of my new studio in Bonn...

Would you agree that, as an artist, knowing your subject is not only important but crucial? Which is why I could not believe my luck when the opportunity to not only photograph (once again) but actually ride one of the most charismatic horses I know arose. I'm a long way off knowing him as well as I could but I can honestly say a giant step closer than I was... the day before I rode Hurricane . Below the two of us in action - I hadn't been on a horse in nearly 5 years. Amazing (and comforting) to see that all the instincts and feelings were still there and he did not seem put out by my lack of strength and agility. A real gentleman.

"Hurricane" Graphite on Paper. 36x56 cm. Sheona Hamilton-Grant Finished. Hurricane is my first drawing this big. The result was well worth the extra hours. In this post I thought it would nice to share the set of instructions used for preparing and producing this specific drawing. (p.s:The ingredients used can be found worldwide, the way in which they are combined comes from trial and error.) INGREDIENTS 1 sheet of Mellotex paper, whole 3 clutch pencils, filled (6B, 2B &2H) 1/2 piece of Blu-Tack 1 gorgeous subject (1.1 tones/2425 lb) 12 finely detailed digital photographs XL Foam board Artist Tape 1 “ White Lies ” cd 2 Marillion cds Collectors Edition Pink Floyd 11/2l of drinking water (daily) 2 nespresso coffees (daily) Preheated studio to 19 ºC = 66.2 ºF. 65 hours of drawing time. Freshly ground passion. DIRECTIONS In a warm studio, over angled drawing board, outline subject and study eyes, movement and ...

Long hairy legs really do make for nice viewing...who would have thought? (insider tip: make sure they are from the animal kingdom.) Another Christmas commission finished and a few more hours spent on the dashing Hurricane. Wanted to share a detail of the progress. A few more hours still needed tweaking here and there but overall looking OK and then it will be on to the chest and right shoulder muscle. May well be a few more days before the next update. The week end is approaching fast and I'm already tucking down taking on tackling position... Cheery waves to all of you wherever you are!

Here he is, the big chap with all sorts of strange feature problems. Notice how the eyes and the nose are wonky. Easy fix (phew!) and not a big worry at this stage as all is still in the "getting it just right" process. I will ask you however to forgive the quality of the scan. This drawing is so big and getting it to sit on the scanner is pretty challenging. I will have to revert to my Eos's help from now on. Thanks for popping by. More to come... soon. Tomorrow is another "no school" day.