Pet Portraits and Wildlife Art

As they say, it's no good fibbing because you always get caught out! This was my secret project, it was to be a very large portrait (well it still is) of Willow, Gypsy and Zac for my other half Ronnie as a present. I thought I could get it done in secret as he is at work and I am not at the moment, but he caught me out, I tried to fib but to no avail so it's not a secret any longer!!! I've also now managed to commendere the portrait to take to shows with me so it's all guns blazing to complete this dog portrait pretty pronto. These are a couple of updates to show how I've got on so far and this is where I've currently got to so now you are all at the same stage I am!

So a bit of info for you, this is Zac, he will be on the right hand side of the portrait so I intend to work on him first, Gypsy will be sat in the middle and Willow on the left side. I've used some of the images on my photography tips page as reference images as that really was what they were for but I had so many images that were poor quality I thought I would update the page with more examples.

But back to Zac: Zac is about 13 years old and is still going strong. He stays with Ronnie's Mum at night time (she lives next door) but comes down to see us through the day and nags me until I take all of them for a walk around the woods. He is such a happy dog, all the way around the woods, his tail never stops wagging even on the way home!

So far I have had to use a variety of brands of pencils to get the correct colour for Zac's fur. I have never mixed brands before thinking they would not work well together but thought maybe I was restricting my palette a little, so here I have used derwent artists, coloursoft, studio and polychromis and prismacolour pencils and so far so good, although you can feel the different brands in use as some are smoother than others. Anyway so far so good, plus I think I've managed to get the sheen on his coat quite well and even though Zac is somewhat of an old gent now his fur is still shiny and in good condition plus he's the best looking spaniel I've ever seen!

Cyril the Squirrel update:

The latest news is that Cyril can now see as his eyes are fully open, the website I have used for info about squirrels says that once squirrels see humans they become a little frightened and do not interact too well but it seems no one told Cyril, as soon as I put my hand in his carry basket to feed him he begins 'gumming' my fingers, he shows absolutely no concern about my not being at all squirrel like, perhaps he's like me and needs specs to cross the room!!! Yet again I've not taken the promised video of him but I will I do so as soon as possible.