Shelties - work in progess

Pebbles & Golly
More work to do darkening down the shady areas

very small reference photos!

Society of Feline Artists' Exhibition 2011

Fantastic news for me! I've had two pictures accepted for this year's SOFA exhibition at the Llewellyn Alexander Gallery in London.

Come along between 26th August and 16th September to view the work of over 50 members of SOFA.

Maine Coon

maincoon, a photo by ArtyPets on Flickr.

Still a little more to do . . . might darken down the background a little more and just generally fiddle with it. Hoping to get it framed in time for the SOFA exhibition submission deadline on 4th August!

Bobcat in acrylics

I was going to do this all in acrylic inks, but I only have a few bottles
so went back to my larger range of tubes. This is probably the smallest painting I've done
it's only 20 x 20cm (8 x 8").

A bobcat in a wildlife park in the Netherlands
photo kindly donated for general use from
Pet Portraits & Wildlife Art Forum

Sophie

Beautiful, very much missed Sophie

Completed in a mixture of soft and hard
pastels on velour mount board, A3

Competition winner's portrait finished

Here's Blu, all finished. A4 is the smallest size I do as I find working small quite hard; it's difficult to get in the detail to get it to look lifelike. I'm pleased with this one though; haven't done a pencil drawing for a while and really enjoyed it. In the photo, Blu's left tooth was covered by his tongue. It looked odd when I copied it so I've popped it back in!  If you'd like me to do a portrait this size of your pet, I have an offer on at the moment - see my website for more details.

The competition was run in conjunction with Portsmouth's About My Area website which is a fantastic source of what's going on where in the local area.

Blu, Staffordshire Bull Terrier

This is the competition-winner for About My Area's Prettiest Pooch.

Sultan - amendments to contrasts

Working German Shepherd, Sultan

 Just about there now, waiting for my client to give it the thumbs up.  Next up is a graphite portrait of a staffie - the winner of Portsmouth's AMA dog photo competition.

A little more progress on Sultan

More detail added to the eyes and nose, but much of the fur is still in its blurry undercoat phase.

Sultan, German Shepherd

Firstly, I enlarged the image using a standard grid technique. The canvas is 14" x 11", triple primed with gesso. Here's the first coat of background colour.

 Some further underpainting, picking out the darker highlights.

After speaking with my client, we've changed the background to a softer green.

Diesel, ready to go home . . .

Diesel, A3 pastels on velour paper

Diesel, Staffordshire Bull Terrier

Greetings cards on Folksy

My Folksy Page

Sophie

A3 pastels on velour

Sheltie, forever in mid-jump

Well, here he is, all done! I see this painting as a tribute to the lovely weekend I spent at Broadlands - Scallywags Spring Spectacular Agility Show.

Sheltie beginning to 'jump forward'

Here's today's progress - with thanks to helpful input from members of the pet-portrait forum and also those who go to the Hilsea Art Group in Portsmouth.  For those of you who don't attend an art group, I'd highly recommend it; it's encouraging and enables you to progress much quicker than you would on your own.

Close up of head and front feet.  The whole body has been darkened down, particularly underneath near the pole.  Detail still needs some work.

Blue Merle Sheltie - Scallywags Spring Spectacular Dog Agility 19 & 20 March 2011

Main colours blocked in in Cryla acrylic paints.  This is on A3 paper for acrylics and oils.  I spent a great weekend at the Scallywags Spring Spectacular Dog Agility Show and was inspired to paint these fantastic dogs in action.  This is a beautiful blue merle shetland sheepdog.

Close up of face.

More detail added in grass and dog with DR acrylic inks.

LucyLou's eyes

I'm still undecided on whether to put the snow in or not.  Today, though, I've put in a little more detail around the eyes and ears.

LucyLou, Rescue Sheltie

This is LucyLou a rescue Sheltie from Ireland. I decided to try out hard pastels on Pastelmat instead of my usual velour. It's quite a different surface; it feels like very fine cork and I have to work harder to get the fur effect I want.

This piece of pastelmat is very dark grey which I thought would bring out the white in her coat; the picture is taken of her in the snow and I may or may not try to put in the snowflakes afterwards!

 

A little more work on the muzzle here.

I've darkened down the left hand side and added white to the right and on her bib.  I've done this quite roughly with the side of the pastel stick; I'll add the detail in with the Faber Castell pit pastels.

Here's progress to date along with the reference photo.