Pet Portraits and Wildlife Art

Apologies for my lack of updates lately, other things have taken over somewhat but I am getting back to portraits! This is where I've got to with the dog portraits of Willow, Gypsy and Zac. Willow now has almost got legs and Gypsy needs her feet worked on some more. Other than that I have started the background, this could be a long job, I may have to put it away soon as commission deadlines are looming, I had thought I would get this finished pretty soon as it was Ronnie's birthday present!

I've moved on a little with this dog portrait. Willow is now appearing in the portrait. I shall be able to work her chest area in full before I move back across to Gypsy, if I work any further down I will probably manage to smudge everything. They look a little less like spare parts now but there's still a long way to go, as I have said before this is a very large portrait and it does seem to be taking an age to get anywhere but I am pleased with the likeness I've achieved for Willow, wouldn't it be awful if I couldn't paint my own dog!!!!

I've made more progress with the latest of my dog portraits, here is a little more on Gypsy's dog painting. It was quite difficult to take a photo of her, the image was either too bright and showed very little detail or was too dark and looked very grey and over worked. I think this is about as close as I can get it but it still looks very grey when in fact the background is an off white but hopefully you can see enough. I've noticed I need to add a little more dark around her left eye (the right as you look at the dog painting) as it looks a bit small due to to lack of definition so I will go back to do that. Funny that I didn't notice it when working on it but after looking at the dog portrait image here it is very noticable to me.

Then I did get a little bored with white so I moved across to Willow and changed all the whites and creams for greys and blacks! I have three different blacks, ivory black, mars black and black so this gives me three additional colours to work with, they are all derwent but you can tell the difference between them which is surprising.

Anyway, here are all three together, although they look like spare parts at the moment!

I've booked myself into a few shows over the next month or so and I hope to take this piece with me if I don't get it finished soon. I went to the Lea Show with my stall on August bank holiday just gone, of course I forgot to charge the battery on my camera to take any photos but it was very well attended and I did get a lot of interest but only time will tell if I make any commissions. I sold quite a few cards printed with my artwork and a few prints which paid for the stall fee and I had a lot of enquiries about my pet portrait competition so hopefully some more entries will arrive soon. Of course I took Willow as she is a bit of a show stopper so I plonked her at the front of my stall so she could obligingly sniff anyone who came close enough to stop them and then I dragged them in. She has an odd habit of nudging people on the back of the leg to let them know she is there and it worked, she got a huge bone for her efforts and we did manage a few forays around the ground but it is difficult to man a stall on your own. I did leave her in charge of the stall when I popped next door to the ladies and she did well, when I got back she had a few browsing people in. What a good girl!

I've also added a guestbook to my website, you can access it on the links bar on the left of this page as well. Visitors can now add comments about my work and website, if you would like to leave me a comment please do so, you can also add your website details which also provide you with a free link. I also spent quite a while adding more links so if you do want a reciprical link just let me know.

I'm surprised by how much work Willow's dog portrait is turning out to be, I'm not sure if it's because she has black fur or if it just is fiddly, either way I seem to be getting nowhere fast!

As it really is coming to the end of the summer (what summer) we decided to sort out the top end of the garden where the pheasant pens are, it had become quite overgrown as most of the pens have trees in for perches and privet for protection for the birds, we also mowed a few pathways through and it now looks like a secret garden. I was of course accompanied on my photography tour by my faithful assistant Willow, she really was not meant to feature at all today but she always managed to get in on the shot, what a lime light hogger she is!