Pet Portraits and Wildlife Art

This should have been yesterday's post but unfortunately there are not enough hours in a day to get everything done so here it is somewhat belatedly along with...

...today's update. The leopard is all but complete now, I will of course go back to edit highlights and shadows as I see fit. The sunlight has washed out the colours yet again showing my poor editing skills but nevermind at least I got a shot! (and it was sunny so I'm not complaining). I'm so pleased with how this is panning out, all I hope is I can keep the background as realistic, the background being monotanous rocks which would provide a good backdrop to show off all the colours of the leopard but which may also be a little mind-numbing (I've already ordered lots of greys, blues and blacks to do it) so I'm hoping my enthusiasm will not wane! To give you some idea of how much work has gone into this so far the leopard is 17" long and 13" deep but by volume I would expect no more than a quarter of the page has been covered over with colour so I've got a mammoth task still ahead. If all goes to plan I think it will be wise of me to take the portrait to a local photographer and have an image taken by a professional for a change!

Also we've been gardening today and tidied up all the hedges, our entrance to the drive is now twice as big to allow us to swing the truck in, it still won't go round in one go but at least you don't take half the hedge down with it anymore!

Anyway here are a few pics of the birdies going about their business as usual

This is a muscovy drake we hatched last year, they are now fully grown apart from two later hatched ones but they will catch up in no time.

And some of our speckled sussex hens were also helping out in the bottom field.

And I do apologise for not passing on the painting award, I've a few more things to do to my blog as I seem to have lost my slideshow at the top right as well so this will get done asap!!!