Bennet the Basset Hound!

Watch him come to life on the paper and read about my Daily Drawings……

Hello Bennet! 

Here he is, enjoying the sunshine on my desk this afternoon!

The original painting of Bennet is available from my website here. He is £195 and the paper size measures 29 x 18cm. 

Bennet is painted in liquid acrylic ink with pencil and Faber Castell polychromos pencil crayon, and watercolour crayon details (added after the ink was dry). I then used a very fine pen to add further lines and whiskers!

I painted him today as the sun was streaming through my studio window and I remembered to make a QuickTime Film of the process. It’s always fun to see drawings come to life at speed - this is actually about 2 hours work (not including the sketching) squashed in to under 30 seconds (I also didn’t film right to the end. I was filming on my phone and somebody called me so it stopped - sorry!) . Imagine if I could really paint this fast!? Would it be good or bad?! I don’t actually know!

I try to make a new drawing or painting every single day. I share these over on my Instagram, on my Facebook and on Notes here now too! I call these drawings my Daily Drawings and I use the hashtag #catherineraynerdailydrawing.

More about my Daily Drawings...

The project started back in 2019 when started make a little drawing every day. It seemed that there was more and more paperwork to do and some days I wasn't managing to do any drawing at all. Completing one little illustration a day made me feel like I had achieved something creative and lifted my spirits. PLUS it turned out that people wanted to buy them. It was lovely to be able to offer small artworks, for a change. Up until that point I only sold my large paintings and canvases in gallery exhibitions (I do still do this - details for an upcoming solo exhibition are coming soon!).

My Daily Drawings have also inspired four of my books so far and I’m sure my actual drawing has improved with the extra practice! Yes, I do draw for a living, but a lot of my time is also spent designing, writing and running my small business! My Daily Drawing made me DRAW! When I meet new artists or people who are struggling with their own creativity, I often suggest they do the same. Just for a month, even. You’ll feel your confidence grow and your skills improve. Just one hour every evening - listen to a podcast and sketch away. It’s wonderful! Plus you’ll have a lovely pile of pictures at the end (dare I suggest Christmas gifts, even?!)!

I have a three other little Daily Drawings available at the moment… meet Jonesy, Pebble and Priscilla. You can find further details here… If you’d like to see the full archive you can find it on instagram if you search the hashtag #catherineraynerdailydrawing.

Meet 'Jonesy', 'Pebble' and 'Priscilla'

I would never have imagined that I would still be making my Daily Drawings (sometimes paintings! Like Bennet today) 5 years later when I made my first one! (Incidentally - it was of a guinea pig! I LOVE guinea pigs but I’ll save that story for another day…) 

I still receive messages from all over the world saying the drawings I share on my profiles are lifting spirits across the globe, which is just lovely and makes it even more worthwhile. I do love hearing from you!

So there you go! I hope I’ll have the sunshine on my desk again tomorrow. It’s been lovely!

Thanks for reading :)

Love, Catherine x