Pet Portraits and Wildlife Art

A couple more updates on the german shepherd pet portrait, this is Macey, an 8 year old bitch I am working on so far. I had intended to get further on with this today but other problems arose.

I have started work on the body in this next update of the pet portrait, so far I am using about 20 different colours to achieve the fur texture and there is no layering whatsoever, it does prove a bit of a challenge.

And finally... it is with real sadness that I have to report poor Pickle died today, it seems he suffered a stroke and came bounding out of his little igloo this morning all lop-sided. I can honestly say I am quite gutted as although he was tame, since his operation he had been a little spoilt and had come to live in the living room in a carry cage. As well as his excursions out into his pen in the garden he was allowed to sit on my lap every evening to watch tv and he would come out of his cage just to be with us so he did become something of a special pet. I feel a bit silly saying I'm more than a bit upset about a little guinea pig but he was, as are all the others, a rescue, he was originally called Snowflake and had been taken back to the shop and was desperately seeking a home at almost 1 year old, so you already know what happened next, as with all strays, he came to live with us a few years ago and really did have the life of guinea pig dreams. Anyway, I now have to decide whether or not to replace him or not to give another little piggy a good home, but it's far too soon to even think about that. Hilariously, all of our pets receive a full burial, little coffins and a stone in the garden (I think we put stones on them to remind us were they are as we have a big garden and it would be awful to dig them up or forget who was where!) So Pickle is going to join Pip, Squeak, Clover and Pixie in guinea pig heaven, I hope they get lots of dandelions!

Hi ho hi ho it's off to work we go! I'm hoping to speed up my work rate as I have quite a few portraits in hand at the moment, I'm not complaining, it's good to have them but I want to plough on rather than dawdle as I usually tend to. I did say my future portraits list was in no particular order and I will be working them to reach deadlines and moving them around to ensure everyone gets their portraits when they are needed. Therefore, I've made a start with Arthur and Macey's pet portrait. These two beautiful german shepherds came to my house for a photo session and I have to say they were much much larger than Willow so I'm in no doubt she'll be growing some more in the future. This is the beginning of Macey's head, she is 8 years old whereas Arthur is 7. They are very well behaved german shepherds (they do belong to a dog trainer so they should be!) and were a joy to have visit. Arthur did show interest in my rabbit Rex but other than that both were chicken, goose and pheasant friendly luckily and they strolled around without any problems at all.

And here is one of my favourite sights of the summer, the humble bumble bee, this one was busy on the lawn, Willow does take an interest in these as well as flies, wasps etc and she tries to catch them. This has now caused near disaster after she found a wasp nest in the woods and got stung on the nose several times, her face rapidly swelled up and I did begin to worry that maybe she had managed to swallow one which could make her throat swell up, after a good wasp removal session with the help of Dave we managed to get them all off her and a few hours later her face was back to normal. I'm hoping the stings were quite bad so she'll ignore them in future but somehow I doubt it.

And for anyone wondering about Pickle, and just for Sheila, here he is, out and about in the grass. He is in urgent need of putting on weight and loves munching through grass so at every opportunity I put him out in his pen.

And finally, my babies on a walk in the woods behind our house. There are quite a few rambling trails around us but I especially like one route out of the way where not may others venture, for one thing it's too far and a bit off the main track, the only thing is it does have a few puddles which Willow loves, she knows where they are so runs ahead to stand in them and then defend them from Zac and Gypsy, her favourite but filthy game.

She's the queen of the puddle, 3 of them Willow decided to splash about in, Zac was wise by this point and stayed behind me so he didn't get involved but Gypsy loves it and by the time we get home she's usually covered in mud, dirt, red puddle water and and bramble and very far from white!

At last I have had a close encounter with some boar, I say at last because it did turn out to be a bit of a relief! We met 12 piglets and 2 sows and at a guess the sows were last year's young as they were large dog sized, probably about 80lbs whereas the large boar are probably 3 times as heavy as that! The sows spotted us and started to trot off up into the woods and the little ones shot off like bats out of hell, they can hurdle and charge along faster than any other animal I've seen in the wood including deer! They must have had turbo engines! Willow was quite interested so I put her on a lead but this did prove very problematic as she kept going around the wrong side of the trees and we got a bit tangled up so I had to let her off again, luckily she was good and did not venture off sniffing so all is well in boarland! This one above is a Forest of Dean boar and the photo was taken by our previous wildlife ranger who has now moved to Lincoln but he kindly let me use it, I really am not sure I could have captured the troop on camera as for one thing they were so fast but for another I was too busy making sure Willow didn't give chase. Imagine meeting one of these in the dark!! No thank you!

I've been given this Premio Meme award by Doreen Cross of http://www.dorsart.blogspot.com/ and just take a look at her header image, it's such a lovely chocolate box cottage, I want to live there and also by Christine Perry of http://www.creativelifestudio.blogspot.com/ who does amazing people portraits in graphite pencil.

Now for the important bits, I need to list 7 things about myself.... sorry about this but....

1. I am gadget mad, digital cameras, slr cameras, mp3 players, digital video cameras and so on, I could play with them for hours, never reading any instructions at all and luckily I've never blown anything up to date!

2. I'm not keen on children (should I really say that?) I prefer feathers, four legs or fur myself, all are welcome at my house! My home is not a zoo! I wish our constant stream of visitors who bring their children and expect a few hours of free entertainment from my bunnies, guinea piggies, puppies and fowl would please leave me alone! I just want them all to myself! Will I be shot at dawn?

3. I'm a sucker for a sob story, not films mind you, any poor animal which is looking for a home inevitably ends up at my house, 5 rescue rabbits, 4 guinea pigs and a limitless supply of cockrals will all testify that I will take them in!

4. I have just spent over £100 on a guinea pig who had a bladder stone (Pickle) and once had a rabbit with such bad teeth he cost me well over £200 in opertions to stop them growing so crookedly....don't tell Ronnie though!

5. I'm pretty sure I am the only girl tariffer in the country at the Forestry Commission, tomboy or what! Today I waded through clay mud and suffered a severe downpour of heavy rain all in the line of duty.

6. I hate shopping, any kind, grocery, clothes, household, the only kind of shopping I enjoy is fish shop shopping (try saying that after a beer) for my aquariums.

7. I hate flies, they make my skin crawl, I don't mind snakes and spiders at all but flies just make me feel ill. Yuk.

Now I must pass this to 7 others I feel deserving of such an award, however I'll be completely blatant in passing it to some of my most loyal followers who constantly leave me comments and encourage me to continue along my artist's path!

1.http://kathleen-coy.blogspot.com/ meet Cloud her doggie too!

2.http://portraitsthatbite.blogspot.com/ I loved her pelican portrait

3.http://artwithliz.blogspot.com/ a South African artist (lucky lady)

4.http://artwithapencil.blogspot.com/ a fellow pencil portrait artist

5.http://sheilatajima.blogspot.com/ a lady who does an immense amount for rescue animals

6.http://jeannegrant.blogspot.com/ she has the most wonderful field trips, I'm so jealous

7.http://artbygail.blogspot.com/ I just love her ravens!!!!

All of the above blogs are well worth visiting, I visit them all very often and look at the stunning artwork on each so do take a few minutes to meet some new friends and artists.

Also I have updated my future portraits list as much as possible in the right hand column, I am still waiting for a further three dog photos and will add them as soon as possible. Please ignore the order they are posted in as this may not neccesarily be the order I work them in as some are for Christmas presents (can you believe it) so others may get slotted in or put aside for the time being. Phew I think I am going to be a bit busy for a while and at least it keeps me out of trouble!

Anyway Willow and I are off for our last training session before her bronze exam so please all keep your fingers crossed for us for a week as we need all the help we can get!!!!

As promised, the update on Brodie's pet portrait! It's been a problem posting this image as dear Willow decided to eat the ethernet cable, the modem router plug, the telephone cable, the spare internet cable, the vacuum cleaner plug and a wind-up dancing chicken! I have no idea what came over her but she was not in good books, the next day things were back to normal with no damage and she was well behaved as though nothing had happened, however I have not been able get onto the internet or check my emails until today!

Anyway back to business, I mounted and framed Bodie and Snoop for collection today. We met Snoop's Dad at Ledbury auction and he was very pleased with the outcome. I also managed to bid for and buy a huge pub sandwich board which will be renovated and put by my gate advertising my wares, my only ever purchase from the auction so I was very pleased!

And yesterday my garden was over-run with dogs posing for future portraits, as soon as I plough through the many photos I took I'll update the future portraits images.

Plus I also visited this lovely horse and his stable mates to get some shots for portraits (he has actually recovered from a broken leg and was in a sling for about six weeks) and again as soon as I can I'll update the future portraits list.

I've also received a bumper load of unsuitable images for my pet portrait competition, if you are thinking of entering, as it's completely free, please do just take a few minutes to read the entry details, this will prevent your images being rejected, please bear in mind images taken on camera phones are generally too poor to use, I really cannot work from something the size of a postage stamp!

A couple more updates on Snoop's pet portrait, I'm still working around the nose area! I had not planned on working in a circular motion but once I'd noticed it, it seems to be all I think about as I'm busy beavering away!

This was after a bit more was completed but it would have been more but I became obsessed with the tennis (Murray v Roddick) and all of a sudden I felt quite old, I remember my first viewing of tennis when I was at primary school and a teacher took us for a walk, half way around it tipped down with rain and we went to her house, low and behold she put the tennis on to keep us quiet and I was hooked. Since my years of watching all the grandslams (some via teletext before cable was invented) I remember Jimmy Conners and John McConroe then Boris Becker and Stefan Edberg's battles the most and it was a nice change today to think a Brit could go all the way, alas it was not meant to be, but I was glued to my tele in the garden (I had to let my rabbits out) all afternoon! My excuse for the next few weeks is the tour de france so be prepared for more stoppages!

And I'm glad to report my passion flower has decided to breath again, after the hard frosts of the winter (hard frosts seem a long time ago after the week of heat waves we've had) I though it had given up the ghost and was ready to dig it up, then suddenly it sprang back to life, it covers my rabbit shed and looks lovely in the summer so I am happy it didn't quite flake out on me!

And this week at work has been hard, we were down to a two man crew plus the heat was just painful, even Willow had tired paws!

Although she did recover enough to pose with her best friend Gypsy.

Just a few pics from the garden, I have no idea what this plant is, this year is the first time it has flowered. I have some vague recollection it does only flower every so many years but that's about it, answers on a postcard please!

A pretty little lilac flower (again my lack of gardening knowledge is terrible)

And for anyone catching up with the latest news on Pickle, he has returned to his bossy little self, squeaking loudly and hanging from his cage for fresh veg so things are getting back to normal.

Again, I've lost my blog list, don't forget, if you were on it or would like to be on it, just let me (a reciprical link is appreciated)

Hope you are all enjoying the sunshine!