House and garden

Recently my friend, Helen  Peacocke asked me to paint a 'portrait' of her house as it was going to be obscured by infill buildings on her neighbour's land. I offered the above two sketches for her to choose from. 

She asked for version 1 cropped to the top of the chimney and to just below the cats. She then described how she would like her pets included in the painting.

She liked the above drawing but 'Pythius' her companion dog asked to be slimmed down slightly.

The ratio of her chosen view is not a standard canvas size so I phoned Jackson's Art after getting confused by the measurement sizes for ordering in their catalogue.  I found 'Joe' to be very helpful and hopefully the canvas should arrive in a week's time. 

I plan in the next week to refine the drawing and print it onto watercolour paper for colour studies.  My printer uses 'DuraBrite' ink which is vastly expensive but as it is both water proof and light proof allows me to paint over the print with watercolour paints.