Here is my final oil painting of 2006! This tractor, painted on 20 x 16 stretched canvas, was commissioned by a lady in the UK for her husband who is tractor mad! The client received it safely on Thursday last week and she sent me a wonderful email to thank me. I don’t often get to paint many things other than pets so painting the tractor was a wonderful end to 2006!

The end of the year is a great time for reflecting. As another year has passed, again its been a very fulfilling year for me work wise, each year that goes by my business improves a little more, hopefully both my work and website get better and things move forward.

I will never forget the wise words of my art teacher from school, who im still in touch with him, and greatly appreciate his advice. I was in my last year of A’levels, and he told me that it would take about 10 years to really get established in any art business. Of course being young and pretty naive i didn’t believe it would take that long, but with experience, i now realise that setting up in business, getting known, getting established does take a lot of hard work. In fact it takes many hours of work and many years of dedication and you never stop moving forward and striving to make things better.

One thing i really feel has helped our community is the forum i set up in January. My IT adviser suggested it last Christmas in a review i had, mainly because i had been receiving so many emails from budding artists during the year, that i was replying to the same questions and answers over and over and it was affecting my daily work. So to be able to have a place where i could send artists to view the most popular questions and answers and even better, perhaps have someone else who had more experience than i to help answer these questions would be invaluable information for everyone.

Now a year later i cant believe how the forum has taken off and bought many pet portrait artists from around the world together. To have a dedicated place for us to go, i think has really helped many artists with both business queries and with artwork crits and help. I didn’t have this help when i started up so i am so pleased that it has become an invaluable resource available to all pet portrait artists.

Id just like to officially thank my 4 moderators who have helped me in the last few months. As the forums popularity has grown, so has the need for moderation. Slinky, Horsewhisperer, Nutty and Geraldine have been a huge help and i can’t thank them enough. I also think we have had some fun and laughs along the way too so that’s been great!

Well im going to close now, id like to wish everyone a wonderful holiday season, wherever you are, whatever you are doing, enjoy yourself! I’m off now, im taking a couple of weeks break from work to recharge my batteries. Being Christmas Eve the decorations are up, the twinkly lights are on, the presents are under the tree and im now going to make some mince pies and traditional English Christmas biscuits (cookies) for my family.

Happy Holidays!!!!

I have finally completed Zach the pet portrait in Oils on canvas. I have scanned him in this morning and uploaded the final painting on my pet portraits showcase blog. If you would like to see him complete, click the banner link below! The final stages were mainly to add more detail over the grass, blend the dappled light in the background a little more and bring out some further detail within the dogs fur.

I am now today back working on the tractor painting and i will let you know when i have added that final scan onto my showcase blog as well. it will probably take me a couple of days to complete, i have the main areas in, and i am now starting to add some details over the portrait. its great when its starting to come together, the light is looking great in it, which is mainly what i wanted to capture. All will be revealed soon!

Here is my latest pet portrait in oils on canvas. He is a collie dog named Zach and i was lucky enough to get to take his photos and meet him when he and his owners visited my studio is the summer. He enjoyed his trip i think and had a lovely time in the garden with jenny our collie, they behaved very well together! Zach is a working dog and his owners also have sheep, but he is much better trained than Jenny! Jenny is more of a ‘do i have to’ type of gal! She is getting a lot older now and enjoys her naps a lot more these days!

I painted Zach on a 20 x 16 canvas in oils, and the background that you can see is our garden. The colours look quite fresh and sparkly, as it was just coming into the new growth and the sunlight was dappling that day so i just had to see if i could depict the light in there too. By softening each edge of the bank, it stops the painting from being cut in half and allows the background to recede.

I hope you like him. I’m in the process of completing a tractor portrait, you may have read about it on my work in progress blog. I will add the final scan of it soon.

I have been up early this morning work on Zach, hes coming along well. I have been adding detail in his coat and face, the flash has whitened his face out a bit in the photo but it is as detailed as his coat. I’m just adding the shadow under his body and feet now and will be working on the grass and background too. I will add a new stage later today. I have also sent my last overseas pet portraits in the post today so im keeping my fingers crossed that they arrive in time!

Heres my third stage of Zach the pet portrait in oils of the collie. I ahve started adding the lighter grey patches in his coat and also adding some darker colours to his shadowed areas. The flash has picked up the front of the painting but hopefully it will give you an idea of what its like. Next stage to follow!

Heres my second stage of Zach. I have now got to add the next stage of grass and hedge, soften it a little and move onto Zach. I haven’t worked so much today as we have been to a Christmas Faye at local mansion built in the 1700′s. They were all dressed in Victorian costume and it was great!

My tractor painting is still coming along well, i have been working on Zach in the mornings and the tractor in the afternoons and evenings. Its certainly a variety!  More of Zach to follow tomorrow.

Here is my first stages of Zach the collie. I was lucky enough to take the photos myself in our garden, so not only was i able to meet Zach, i was able to take around 50 photos of him. The client and i went though each one carefully and we came up with this full body photo, and i am painting our garden and hedgerow in the background. I took the photos in full summer so the lighting and colouring is very bright and warm.

I have also been painting a tractor aswell! I hear you gasp…not a dog?! No, a tractor! This is the third time i have painted a tractor, the first was when i was in my foundation course when i was 19, i drew it in sepia pastels (i just love the earthy tones) and i must still have it somewhere in the attic. About 7 years ago i painted my dads old 1940′s power major, again in sepia but this time in paint. it was a painting in the winter while he was on the tractor feeding his cows, it had a very old fashioned feel to it and i gave it to him fro Christmas. This time the painting is for a lady in sussex (Uk) for her husband for Christmas and due to timing, and them not having internet access all the time, im just working though it and will add the final scan on my showcase blog. Im actually really enjoying it, and the ploughed earth it definitely not like painting animals! It uses very different techniques indeed! I will let you know when its complete!

So heres the first stage of Zach and i will post the next stage tomorrow.

Here is my latest pet portrait in Coloured Pencils, she is a beautiful delicate cat called Flee Flee and she was drawn on Italian Fabriano paper to the size of 16 x 12 in coloured pencils. I really enjoyed drawing Flee, i found the old churns behind her with the rust a wonderful contrast with her soft coat and the colours i felt really bring the cat forward into the portrait. often red comes forward but here it is happy to sit to the back of the drawing quite happily. I hope you enjoy it!

Here are the starting on the cat portrait i have been working on in coloured pencil. I hope to have the portrait complete by tomorrow. I have been scanning the portrait in so far instead of using the camera to take shots. The first stages are quite pale so it may be difficult to see whats going on, but i started very lightly, and im working up the tones gradually.

The cat is called Flee Flee and she is beautiful, i have quite a few photos of her and she is so delicate and dainty. I hope that this will come across in my portrait.

This is my last portrait for my overseas clients, the last posting date for sending things to the US is on Monday so im within schedule. I have left myself much more time this year as other years i have been working right up to the last minute and its been quite stressful, last year i was making gift vouchers for people on Christmas eve, so this year i hope will be a little more relaxing! I will post the final scan tomorrow i hope that you all enjoy it!

Hi Everyone,

I have also been working on a beautiful cat in coloured pencil today and this evening i have drawn out my collie dog so its been a busy day for me! Its been lovely here in the studio, all warm and toasty as its so cold and rainy outside. We even had a tornado this week up the coast!

Anyway, Enjoy the portrait and Ill try to add some stages of my new portrait tomorrow!