A small tangent...

One thing about pastels is that they're not very portable.. at least not 'Napping' which is 14 x 22". So since I was out of the house much of yesterday I'm using that as my excuse for not working on the painting and instead doing this:

Detail:

It's 5 x 7" ink on regular drawing paper, regular except that it's been 'manipulated'.   

Some time back I treated this particular page of my sketchbook by soaking it in wet coffee grounds then flattening it under heavy books.  At the time I was striving to make 'coffee paper' - and I like the aged, wrinkled effect (and what a better surface to render Rosie, wrinkled little thing that she was!).  

However my hopes of using this as an art surface were dashed when I read that coffee is acidic - presumably counteracting any acid-free/archival properties of the sketchbook paper.  But necessity is the mother of invention (or the Internet is the big steaming pile in which you can find ANYTHING) and so after a brief search I found this which the manufacturers claim is acid-fast paper!

EcoPaper: Coffee Paper

So watch for Eco-Art on tree-free paper.. coming soon to a blog near you!

But back to the current piece... this is Rosie.  She was an English Bulldog (adopted) who shared my life for 10 years before she succumbed to lymphoma.  I'd like to say she was an angel, but it seemed that when other dogs were around she tended to misplace her halo (to put it lightly).  She was a dear though - and despite her allergies, cancer, and the curse of being born a bulldog she was always full of life!  I can still see her scaring herself with her own farts!

Hope you like my little pen & ink.  It was fun to do!