Pet Portraits and Wildlife Art

As promised, a couple of updates on Snoop. Again this is on drafting film (you know I love it) but this was a bit of a trial and so far I think it's working. Instead of the prismacolor collection (I only had a limited palette) and derwent artists I decided to try derwent coloursofts. Bearing in mind this was my formula on my first attempt with drafting film and the results were awful, this time however, it seems to be working. I think my previous failure was due to technique where I tried to blend the pencils which does not work on drafting film, this time however I used a multitude of tiny pencil strokes not blending but perhaps overlapping in some places thus restricting the amount of layers. Let me know what you think.

I still have to post an update on Brodie which I will do sometime very soon now I have a new sd card.

Meet Trooper Bear. Click on the image to see more detail.

This is the second of two entries for him.

This is what his owner has to say...

This is my baby boy Trooper Bear, a purebred Malamute - though he is not "standard" because he has too much fur...he's considered a "Woolie" malamute.He's a total mama's boy and super smart - with a brief stint in Agility where he won four ribbons (Malamutes aren't known for their ability to train well due to their stubbornness) in his one and only competition. We've had him since he was 8 weeks old and he brings us constant joy (along with his three "siblings") and laughter.

If you would like this image to be painted as a pet portrait please leave a comment to from 1st January to 1st July 2010 stating 'vote' somewhere in the comment, any comments not stating 'vote' will not be counted. Non voting comments are also accepted.

Meet Trooper Bear. Click on the image to see more detail.

This is the first of two entries for him.

This is what his owner has to say...

This is my baby boy Trooper Bear, a purebred Malamute - though he is not "standard" because he has too much fur...he's considered a "Woolie" malamute.He's a total mama's boy and super smart - with a brief stint in Agility where he won four ribbons (Malamutes aren't known for their ability to train well due to their stubbornness) in his one and only competition. We've had him since he was 8 weeks old and he brings us constant joy (along with his three "siblings") and laughter.

If you would like this image to be painted as a pet portrait please leave a comment from 1st January to 1st July 2010 stating 'vote' somewhere in the comment, any comments not stating 'vote' will not be counted. Non voting comments are also accepted.

Below are the entries received so far for my pet portrait competition. (For your chance to win a colour pet portrait please read these details)

Voting will be from 1st January to 1st July 2010. Entries will accepted until 21st December 2009.

Click on the images for a little information about each pet and why it is so special to help you vote. When voting begins come back each day to leave a comment on your chosen image, please note you will only be able to vote once each day although you can vote for different images on different days. To increase the chances of your favourite image also visit my website from 1st January 2010 to vote on the poll there too. The entry with the most overall votes will become a full colour pet portrait.

If you like my work please take the time to leave me a comment or become a follower (see bottom of page). If you would like to win a pet portrait of your dog, cat, horse or any other pet please see my new competition. It costs nothing to enter, all you require is internet access.

Thanks for visiting!

Just a few pics from the garden today, as usual Willow will not be apart from her beloved football, she has punctured the new one and abandoned it already, this one is obviously her favourite, she now tries to take it for a walk in the woods as well as to bed with her at night time. She's a bit obsessed now! She's soon to take her bronze training assessment in a few weeks, I'm not sure if she will pass though as although she is quite good at doing all the exercises, she will need to do them without treats on the night, and she does like her cheese, fingers crossed she'll be as good without it, we are currently phasing her treats out which is good as she's developed quite a fancy for expensive Cathedral City Cheese!!!

And this has absolutely amazed me, we found these little chicks this evening after just hatching out today. Their Mummy is known as Thumbelina due to her minute size, she herself was hatched a couple of years ago and she stopped growing at a young age and I just cannot believe she managed to sit on 10 eggs! These must all be hers as no other hen is brave enough to sit where she was plus they are all so very very tiny themselves, much smaller than the normal size.

And the muscovy ducklings are happy as can be with their own mini swimming pool and mum to look after them, she spends 99% of her time just rounding them up!

And so to the furry little bunch, this is BB, one of my adopted brood, he's a little overweight, but at 7 going on 8, I think it's a bit late to put him on a diet, he's a grumpy old so and so and growls at me every morning, yet he loves a cuddle and is quite happy to be picked up and fussed and has had many many baths which he doesn't seem to mind at all!

Treacle loves Bob, she cuddles up to him all of the time, Bob just completely ignores her until they have a pointless tug of war over dandelions. She's so sweet, she squeaks all of the time and is a typical woman when it comes to getting her opinions across....very loud!

As for Pickle, he is running about the garden but he is still indoors at night time so I can keep an eye on him, last night he watched a film whilst sat on the sofa, he sat motionless for about half an hour and then went racing off somewhere down the other end of the sofa, so things are looking up, he's also started squeaking much more which is always a good sign!

And just a quick video of the guinea fowl, these are hilarious, they beat each other up relentlessly, sometimes in a rush to get away or chase one another they do crash into things which I've yet to catch on camera but even so they just have me in stiches as they really are quite mad!

Anyway, here in sunny old England it's fast approaching 9pm, I'm still sat out in a very sunny garden in my t-shirt. I love the English summer, it's just such a shame it's only for a quarter of the year (on a good year) but already we have passed the longest day so I have got to make the most of it, hence no pet portrait update! Oh dear.

Not too much of an update on Brodie's pet portrait. This past week has been quite tiring at the day job so I've not done much at all. At least Brodie has 4 legs now and can stand up! I'm still trying to figure out the background but I am working on it I promise!

And talking of work, this was the lovely place we ended up at on Thursday, it's a fishing pond near a place called Steam Mills. This is a man made pond created by the Forestry Commission, isn't it lovely!

I even managed to spot some of the local wildlife (it turned out to be a foreigner who has moved in permanently into this country...a mandarin duck and her little ducklings)

And here they are hard at work, it was quite a busy day with the boys felling some difficult tress and then me trying to help drag them up a bank, I did get ran over by a tree at one point!

As you can see, nothing is ever easy, there were some harder trees to fell, this involved them having to be roped and dragged back in by hand, I found myself on the end of the rope many times and boy did my arms ache afterwards!

And poor Willow was not impressed at all, as she isn't worried by the noise of the chainsaws I did tie her up out of harms way as the trees were felled because I thought she may have come to investigate, even then she narrowly escaped a tree falling on her as it was taller than expected and fell short by about a foot, she just lay down but never stirred!

Anyway, it turns out she was smarter than I gave her credit for and simply moved even further away when let off her lead to sit and watch us from a more comfortable distance. You can just see her ears poking up.

And today was another steam rally, I've added a few pics to my flickr account and you can see more here

And I have got a little video of mummy muscovy duck with some of her new duckling babies (the rest are underneath her keeping warm.)

And yet more news on Pickle:

Since my last post Pickle took another turn for the worse and was returned to the vet, he has had xrays and ultrasound and was found to have at least 4 stones, the largest of which was the size of my fingernail, luckily the vet was able to remove this during surgery, unfortunately he could not locate two smaller ones but they could well be on their way out so that's good news but he still has one in his kidneys so only time will tell if this one can be broken down. Pickle now has to eat lots of apple and beetroot for the acid in them to break down the remaining stones and prevent anymore. He is currently holed up in a large carry cage in my living room so I can keep an eye on him. Poor Pickle, but at long last things may actually be cured so I've got my fingers crossed. I would show you a picture of the stone that was removed but it is a bit gory! Oh and you'll be glad to know he's already had a bit of carrot.

Plus one last thing to report, I'm thinking I may hold another pet portrait competition after the success of the one held last year so I'm starting to think about details on that, any suggestions or ideas from you all on that would be appreciated.

If you like my work please take the time to leave me a comment or become a follower (see bottom of page). If you would like to win a pet portrait of your dog, cat, horse or any other pet please see my new competition. It costs nothing to enter, all you require is internet access.

Thanks for visiting!

After much thought I've decided to hold another pet portrait competition after the success of the last one. Below you will see last year's winner, the lovely Charlie who received almost 1,500 votes! You can see Charlie's portrait created here. As my aim is to promote myself and add visitors to my blog and website I will be asking for you to return each day to vote, but this time after so many images arrived after the deadline I am offering more time to send your favourite pet photos in so everyone has an opportunity to take part.

So for your chance to win your own portrait get sorting out your favourite pet image, unfortunately only pet portraits are viable for this competition not people or wildlife and then most importantly tell anyone and everyone they must come back to vote for your special pet in January.

Rules

Entries must be received by 21 December 2009 - they should be emailed to pencilportraits@rock.com, please include your name (this will not be seen by the public), the pet's name and a little bit of information about your pet to encourage visitors to vote for your pet!

The portrait will be of a single pet only (horses, dogs, cats, small pets, birds etc are all acceptable)

Only digital images are suitable and must be at least 250kb otherwise the detail will be too poor to use as a pet portrait, if an image is not clear enough it will not be entered into the competition.

Voting will take place from 1 Jan 2010 by way of a poll on my website and comments on my blog so to double your chances do both (only one vote per email address and google account each day will be accepted) although the finer details will be sorted out closer to the time that voting begins, but in any eventuality the winner will be chosen by the public and not by myself so everyone will have an equal chance of winning. The voting will run until 1 July 2010. Votes on the poll will be viewable instantly and I will update comments votes on a regular basis to ensure everything is above board and fair to all.

For the comments votes, each image will receive it's own posting and comments should be left on that particular post to count, simply state 'vote' at the beginning of the comment. Any voting comments left before 1 Jan 2010 will be deleted although other comments may be published, you must come back in January to vote.

The web poll will not appear until the new year for voting.

The pet will be portrayed as I see fit and will be from what is shown on the image, I cannot make your pet look younger or sit when it is standing - your image should show your pet as you wish it to be portrayed.

Any prize is non-transferable, you cannot upgrade, has no monetary value and is for a colour portrait of a single pet. The portrait will be mounted and sent to the winner by insured recorded delivery.

I reserve the right not to accept an image if I feel it is unsuitable

All accepted images will be posted on my blog/website for visitors to view and vote for.

You can enter up to 2 different images each to the pet portrait competition

All rules are final but are subject to change as the need arises, please feel free to ask any questions if the answer you are looking for is not already shown here.

If you like my work please take the time to leave me a comment or become a follower (see bottom of page). If you would like to win a pet portrait of your dog, cat, horse or any other pet please see my new competition. It costs nothing to enter, all you require is internet access.

Thanks for visiting!

Brodie's pet portrait now has legs!!! I've carried on with the body of Brodie before starting work on the foreground and background. Just a few pics from the garden, some stripey clematis, I love these flowers, apparantly you can find a clematis which flowers for nearly every month of the year.

I've got quite a bit done on this latest pet portrait of Brodie the springer spaniel, so much so that I was ready to finish at the stage shown above but then had second wind and had another go after putting all my rabbits and guinea pigs out to play in the garden!

And of course in amongst all the excitement, Willow patiently waited for a game of football...

So I've started my next pet portrait, another liver and white springer spaniel, this one is called Brodie, very similar in name and colouring to Bodie, my previous pet portrait. Again this is on drafting film (I don't think I'll ever get away from it now as I like it so much) but I've already decided this will probably be over a cream background after all the suggestions and comments for Bodie's background, so I've added it at the beginning for you all to see how things really look from start to end, unless I change my mind though!!! And an update on dear Pickle, he has put on some weight now and is concentrating his efforts on eating as much hay as possible. As I am still giving him medicine twice daily I can feel him getting plumper all the time but he does still squeak a little whereas he used to shreak at me non-stop so there is still some way to go yet but at long last, after all the ups and downs over the past month I think we are finally on the last uphill bit!

Thankfully it is Friday and I have spent a week on banks at work. The bank we are working up and down today is very steep and also covered with wild garlic plus it's damp, hence I have fallen, slipped, skidded and basically slalomed my way down it many times and the garlic has made everything smell awful, even Willow smells of garlic, yuk! I like garlic but an overdose of a week's worth is not the most aromatic smell I know of. Poo, I stink!!!

Anyway, as it is reasonably rainfree this afternoon, I am about to let all of my furry friends, including Pickle, have a run around on the grass for a few hours! Hope the weather is good wherever you all are too!

This is some of what we got up to at work today, this tree was leaning precariously at Soudley Ponds and needed some chainsaw work to make it safe. Andrew 'the axeman' was on the saw to safely drop the tree between several others. And this is Soudley Ponds today, it is very quiet and is a SSSI area which means it is a Site of Special Scientific Interest and has to be protected, it could be for the wildlife or the trees, I think in this area it is because of the trees, some of them are huge and they look in very good condition.
And here is Willow, hard at work as usual! This will be the next area we will be working, still in the Bearse area but this overlooks a little place called Mork, it really is very pretty countryside
And this is one of the oddities of The Bearse, it has a stream containing tuffa rock, quite uncommon. Tuffa rock is used in reef fish tanks but this type is produced when the water flows through the rocks and leaves a residue to build up as tuffa.
And these are a few of the more touristy type photos taken by my sister, these are some swans with almost fully grown cygnets at Mallards Pike, one of the Forestry Commissions sites. These have faired very well and have stayed at Mallards for many months so perhaps the new generation will stay as well
And one of the pieces on the Forestry Commission's Sculpture Trail. This is a stained glass window hung in the trees.

One other thing to point out is the follower widget is not working at the moment, when shown on a blog it results in the blog not being shown so for the time being I am removing it otherwise no one will be able to visit me!!! If you are on blogspot and have a follower counter, I'd just check you can access your blog to view it, not for posting. As soon as blogger fix the problem I'll of course put the widget back online.

Well as you can see I've had a tidy up of my blog, it was becoming more than a little annoying as there were so many add ons on the page it was taking an age to download. I've now cut a lot of rubbish out and made it a lot less complicated, let me know what you think!

Also you can see I've now completed Bodie's pet portrait. I've added two different backgrounds and am awaiting the client's choice, she may want something completely different, which do you think looks best? The top image is on a cream coloured background and the lower one has black. The whites do look different on each and I like the cream as it blends in but the black makes the white whiter if you get my meaning!

Willow, Zac and myself have been out playing in the puddles in the wood this morning and again we were lucky enough to avoid any showers, we are getting brief moments of sunshine followed by the blackened skies just before a deluge of rain. Our area is now under a severe weather warning with the risk of flooding, another fantastic oddity caused from living between the Wye and Severn rivers which happily spill over whenever the rain falls.

Almost finished with this pet portrait, hooray! I've worked the basics of the second ear, it will need a bit more work for shading and highlights plus all that now remains is to find an end point under the chest area to complete this.

I've also received lots more images of Brodie and Charlie the spaniels at the bottom of the page so their reference images may well change in the next couple of days but I will keep you updated on that.

News from the home front, we took pity on 3 white campbell ducks at the bird sale today and they now reside in our orchard in amongst kith and kin, if the weather picks up tomorrow I may be able to get some photos but as today was just torrential rain (after last week's mini heatwave!) it was impossible to get any pictures for posting.

England is a bizarre place and it's odd to realise that due to the lack of water reserves we have, a hose pipe ban can exist at the same time as a flood warning! Today was awful weather and I just managed to take the dogs for a walk in the woods in heavy rain rather than rain where it bounces back up from the ground as high as your head! All of my little paths were flooded as I like to go where no man has been before and I got more than a little wet (soaked to the bone I think is the correct term) and then just because there are only two days in a weekend where the day job is forgotten I had to spend hours at my parents' house fixing my sister's new computer. All in all a not very productive day artwise so I am very surprised I managed to post anything today!

One more thing to note is that poor Pickle has decided to take a turn for the worse again today (always when the vet is off) and he will have to go back to the vet early next week. I'm now sure the illness is not life threatening but regardless he will still need to visit our animal doctor for some more magic medicine, plus I think all of my furry friends, rabbits and guinea pigs are so very fed up with not being able to play in their pens today, if they had made it outside they would have needed paddles and boats!

Things have moved on quite a bit since the last update on this pet portrait. I have now completed the first ear and started work on the chest area. I gave up counting how many browns, rusty reds, creams I used on the ear and how many pencil strokes it took to detail the fur as well. Luckily I have only used two colours for the chest area so far as Bodie is quite white and only needs very basic shading to give the impression of fur. Work on the left eye as you look at the portrait did prove a little difficult as in the reference image was very shaded, thanks to the wonders of the computer world I was able to brighten the image considerably to complete this area. You can see previous posts of how this portrait has been created here.

And a little update on life at the 'zoo'

All of the pheasants hatched which was fantastic news, unfortunately due to the weather turning a little damp I now have an airing cupboard full of chirping chicks to keep them warm. Regardless of how well we do up the boxes they are in, some always escape and it does take some effort to recapture them.

Plus there was a tractor auction today and we travelled all the way to Shrewsbury with Willow, who as always managed to get lots of fuss and attention! We returned home with a few additional items such as a police push bike, a post box, 4 army weapons boxes, a lamp and a very large bag of cooked meat which a very kind man from Mr T's Roasties food van gave to Willow (she even managed to charm him!) and boy did she appreciate it!

Going back to Pickle the guinea pig, he is now much much better, his appetite is almost back to normal and he has actually put on some weight and his fur is now looking a little less fluffy now so that's a bit of a relief.

Click here you will see I've added a couple more spaniels to my next portraits, they are called Brodie (liver and white at the very bottom) and Charlie (black and white) and these will be two seperate head and shoulders portraits although they are to be for the same customer. I've never done a black and white spaniel before so this will be something I'm looking forward to.