Spaniel Prints: Cocker, Springer and Cavalier

Mike Sibley has the Cocker Spaniel, the Springer Spaniel, the Cavalier King Charles and the Tibetan Spaniel. Brian Hupfield has a Black Cocker Spaniel and his own Cavalier King Charles. Where both artists have drawn the same breed it is worth looking at the two side by side before choosing - Sibley works in graphite and very tight, coat rendered hair by hair, where Hupfield's line is looser and warmer. Neither is better; they suit different rooms and different dogs.

Spaniels are all about the ears and the eyes, and both are easy to overdo. A cocker drawn with too much emphasis on the ear becomes a cartoon of a cocker. What these drawings get right is the weight of the coat - the way a wet-looking ear actually hangs, the feathering on the legs, the slightly apologetic expression the working types carry around with them.

Mike Sibley has been a professional artist for over twenty years and often spends more than two hundred hours on a single drawing. In a heavily feathered breed that time is visible in the coat, which is the difference between a spaniel and a brown dog with long ears.

Everything here is a giclee print on archival paper with fade-resistant inks, so nothing yellows over a decade on a wall. All are nineteen pounds ninety-nine. Sizes sit around 41 x 28 cm before mounting, which fits a standard off-the-shelf frame.

Each print has stayed in its wrapping since the day it was bought, has never been hung or displayed, and comes to you clean and unmarked.