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artbykarieann
I am a part-time pet portrait and wildlife artist living in the deep dark forest between the Royal Forest of Dean, Herefordshire and the Welsh border. A beautiful and inspiring place to live and create pet portraits and wildlife art.
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Sunday 27 December 2009

Dog Portraits, Willow, Gypsy and Zac



Well Christmas has been hectic, as well as how chaotic it is for shopping, present buying and wrapping etc I've had a rush on portraits to contend with as well, other pet portrait artists will know eactly what I mean. However, I took Christmas Day and Boxing Day off but I do feel slightly lost without a pencil in my hand and am now back to full steam ahead with this dog portrait from some time ago which I put away when commissions had started to build up. As you can see I still have a way to go and it is quite a large portrait so it should keep me out of trouble.
Aside from this I've been trying to decide whether or not to carry on with portraits, this Christmas was manic, due to the number of portraits to do plus I also work full time, the stress was quite unbearable at times. That said I do enjoy it, and I think the main reason for my stress was the fact that I am so disorganised, I really do muddle along. Instead of working things in order to have things finished in time I tend to work the pieces I find most interesting and then I have a mad rush to catch up so I am giving myself the challenge of not getting in that situation again. Having said that, I have a solo display in February for a whole month and now need to produce some more work as the gallery will need to be filled up! So here is my first challenge for the year, to actually sit down and make myself do art instead of fiddling about with my website which I do a lot, all to no avail, I have risen in the search engines and for a complete novice I think I've done quite well, I could do better I'm sure but after being inundated and turning away clients at Christmas I can't be that invisible so perhaps I could leave it for now.
Anyway, my blog readers will soon know if I am keeping to my new rules, art, art, and more art instead of seeming to leave things to just mount up. We'll see!

However, in true tradition I will keep up the animal pics for you all to see, so here are a few more!



This was Elvis our peacock, he and his girlfriend Fanny the peahen turned up on our lawn one afternoon when we came home from work, we never knew if they flew there or were dumped (peacocks do make a lot of noise) but once they arrived, they never left. Elvis was besotted with Fanny, but it was a case of unrequited love and although he displayed his finery as shown above, she simply stalked off everytime in the other direction, in fact it was true to say, Fanny felt Elvis was a right royal pain and would disappear and hide from him. Elvis would strut all over the garden and orchard looking for her, and once he'd caught a glimpse of his beloved Fanny his tail feathers would start to shimmer and he would chase her around shaking his feathers, all to no avail.
We were never sure how old they were but after about 5 or 6 years with us Fanny died, and not long after so did Elvis of a broken heart I'm sure.



And this was Matilda, she absolutely refused to be shut in a pen, all our chickens are let out to wander around the garden and of their own accord they return to pens as dusk falls and we simply shut the doors, however, Matilda steadfastly refused to be shut away and every afternoon when we returned from work, she would race up to our vehicle to meet us, she almost came a cropper a few times getting very close to the wheels in her eagerness! Unfortunately Matilda did die but luckily it was of old age and sometimes it's a bit sad not to see her racing up the lawn to greet us. She followed Ronnie about and decided she should pose on his newly refurbished tractor for prosperity.



And here she is again, never far from the action, with Zac the spaniel waiting for a bit of bread to be thrown at her.



Plus meet Zebedee, this is the kitten I gave my sister for Christmas after she lost her turkish van, Tiggy after 14 years. He stayed with us overnight and we named him Shrek as it was on tele that night! Apparantly he's climbing everywhere and already tried to get into the washing machine!



And of course, not forgetting Willow, here she is on her new christmas bed made by my sister. Willow seemed to like the kitsch leopard print, she's got taste you know!

Entry has now closed for the pet portrait competition 2009/2010 however you can see all of the entries here and voting polls will be added by 1st January 2010 but you can also leave voting comments from the New Year here so do join in as soon as voting begins.

If you like my work please take the time to leave me a comment or become a follower. If you would like to win a pet portrait of your dog, cat, horse or any other pet please see my new competition. The competition has closed for this year but there will be a new one in 2010. Join in the fun and vote for this year's winner by following the links here.

If you are interested in commissioning me please visit my pet portrait artist website or my wildlife artist website
Now visit my picasa photo album to see completed pieces of art.
Thanks for visiting!

1 comments:

Unknown said...

Lovely start to the portrait Wollow, Gypsy & Zac look forward to seeing updates.

Awwwwww sad story on Elvis and Fanny. Thanks for sharing. Wish they had got together and made some babies. :D

Copyright (c) 2008 -2010 Karie-Ann Cooper. All rights reserved. All images, words and text remain the copyright of Karie-Ann Cooper. All artwork on this blog is protected by copyright law and must not be used, copied or downloaded without the permission of the artist