Three Foxes in pastels

Three foxes. Soft pastels on Velour paper.

 I got ambitious with this one. I thought, instead of drawing ONE animal, let's draw THREE! Very quickly, I realised it might not be such a great idea. The reason is that I used Velour paper, and I only have the small pad 32x24cm. Drawing details on Velour paper is challenging enough as it's very fuzzy, and drawing details on three small animals on a small sheet of paper was doubly triply so.

I started with the background, using my softest pastels (Schmincke, Sennelier) and that went well enough.

And then I got to Fox No.1 and instantly ran into trouble. I used the harder Jack Richesons but still, the marks were too thick. I tried NuPastels but the marks didn't go on as bright as I would like.

So I decided to go for a more Impressionistic approach (just to be clear, my Impressionistic is never as loose as what other people would consider Impressionistic!) I made broader marks and tried not to get too hung up on the details. I think it's better.

At this point, I want to make special mention of these Jackson's handmade pastels. This was an impulse buy because I needed to make up my shopping cart for reduced shipping and these are relatively cheap. It's a set of three flourescent colours. You might think I'm mad - whoever uses flourescent colours for wildlife painting? They really do look like neon highlighter shades!

But as you may know, I love my animals to be bright and colourful. I marked a few flourescent orange strokes on the two red foxes and they practically glowed. These pastels are amazing for the price - so soft without being crumbly. Not sure you can see it in the picture but in real life, the orange strokes add such luminosity. I'm like a magpie attracted to shiny things - I LOVE it.

Finally, I completed the rest of the background and added in the foreground. I think I'm getting better at landscape foregrounds. I used a base of very soft pastels, then drew in grass and twig strokes with NuPastels. What I love about NuPastels is they have very dark darks, that are great for shadows.

I don't think this is my favourite painting but it's ok. I'm still finding Velour paper really tricky to use, even after having used up half a pad of it. For some reason, this bright yellow sheet was exceptionally challenging. Not sure if it's my imagination but it seemed harder to get colours to go on bright, and lights wouldn't show up well. When doing the background, I would paint on a bright blue, and minutes later, find that it had mysteriously dulled and the dirty yellow background peeking through. So I had to keep adding layer after layer, while praying that the many layers wouldn't end up muddying everything.

But as always, I keep coming back to Velour because I'm in love with the softness it gives to animals. You might get brighter colours with other sanded paper, but you'll never get fur as soft as on Velour.

Before you go, here's a poem by A.A. Milne:

The Three Foxes

Once upon a time there were three little foxes
Who didn’t wear stockings, and they didn’t wear sockses,
But they all had handkerchiefs to blow their noses,
And they kept their handkerchiefs in cardboard boxes.

And they lived in forest in three little houses,
And they didn’t wear coats, and they didn’t wear trousies.
They ran through the woods on their little bare tootsies,
And they played “Touch Last” with a family of mouses.

They didn’t go shopping in the High Street shopses,
But caught what they wanted in the woods and copses.
They all went fishing, and they caught three wormses,
They went out hunting, and they caught three wopses.

They wen to a Fair, and they all won prizes —
Tree plum-puddingses and three mince-pieses.
They rode on elephants and swang on swingses,
And hit three coco-nuts at coco-nut shieses.

That’s all I know of three little foxes
Who kept their handkerchiefs in three little boxes.
They lived in the forest in three little houses,
But they didn’t wear coats and they didn’t wear trousies,
And they didn’t wear stockings and they didn’t wear sockses.