PET PORTRAITS

Artwork by Nicholas Beall & Melanie Phillips

Archive for October, 2010

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Sun 31 Oct 2010

Pet Portraits Halloween!

Posted by Melanie Phillips under Our Personal News
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Our yearly tradition is to carve dads home grown pumpkins – you can never be too old to carve a pumpkin especially if you are the creative type! Let your imagination run wild and have a bit of fun, and that’s exactly what we did! Nicks pumpkin looks like an under the sea type creature and mines just a bit scary and comical. We never really have any idea what they will look like when we start, which is fantastic as they end up being a spur of the moment design. Tom was utterly curious as to what we were doing watched us the whole time and then gingerly sniffed at them while they were by the fire. He didn’t bark - apart from when we put the Halloween balloons up : ) Hope you all had fun and that the pictures make you smile!

pet portraits pumpkin carving

Nicks under the sea creature pumpkin above.

pet portraits pumpkin carving

My comically, half scary pumpkin above.

pet portraits pumpkin carving

Both pumpkins by the fire in the dark above.

pet portraits pumpkin carving

Tom with the pumpkins!

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Fri 29 Oct 2010

Pet Portrait Pencil of Bailey

Posted by Melanie Phillips under Dog Portraits
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Here as promised is the portrait I have been working on of Bailey. I have completed another portrait for this client of her other Boxer. If you look carefully you can see all of her boxers running free behind Bailey in the field. This is a special place where Bailey loved to be and its great to have significant places incorporated into portraits as it makes them all the more special and unique.

Nick is currently working on the pencil portraits of Tia and Oliver and I should be able to scan them next week. We have my parents coming all day tomorrow which will be lovely, dads bringing the pumpkins he has grown for Halloween! Dog training has been postponed to Sunday, hope to have a bit of a relaxing time and we have to carve our pumpkins! Will post pictures if they are any good : )

Have fun!

pets in pencil

pets in pencil

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Thu 28 Oct 2010

Chocolate Labrador Pastel Portrait

Posted by Melanie Phillips under Dog Portraits
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This is the final scan of Sables portrait that Nick has just completed. The client asked if we would make Sable look a little less grey and to bring out her Topaz eye colour. Also to alter the collar a little. We are hoping to take this portrait to the framers in the next few days, I think a lovely wood frame will bring out Sables colouring well. I have very nearly finished Bailey and will blog it later today.

chocolate labrador pastel

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Wed 27 Oct 2010

Framed Pet Portraits

Posted by Melanie Phillips under Frames & Prints
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Have finally taken photos of this portrait framed, I took some on my usual burgundy throw but the colours didn’t seem to come out so well. I did add it to the website but thought for the blog I’d take some on the new wood floor. You can see the photos in the traditional wood framing section, click on the image to view larger pictures. Hope to have a final scan of Nick portrait of Sable tomorrow so Ill blog it as soon as its ready.

framed people portraits

framed people portraits

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Tue 26 Oct 2010

Second Stages of Nicks Pastel Portrait

Posted by Melanie Phillips under All Work in Progress
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Here are Nicks next stages for his portrait of Sable in Pastels. Its coming along well and Nick has a few photos to work from for this portrait. As you can see from the reference image on the right hand nav, Sable has a sticker or a bow on top of her head so Nick is using a variety of photos to make sure gets everything correct. He also has a close up photo for Sables eyes, and they are a stunning Topaz colour so we need to make sure that these are correct.

I am nearing completion of the boxer portrait of Bailey and so I will blog the final scan of this soon too!

pastel portrait

pastel portrait

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Mon 25 Oct 2010

First Stages of Nicks Labrador Pastel Portrait

Posted by Melanie Phillips under All Work in Progress
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Nick has started a portrait of a lovely Chocolate Labrador called Sable. Its a pastel portrait at 12 x 10 size which will be framed.  Sadly Sable is no long with us so this portrait will be a lovely reminder for her family. These are the first two stages, one of Nick working on it and I will blog further images tomorrow.

pastel pet portraits

pastel pet portraits

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Sun 24 Oct 2010

Final Scan of Cat Portrait in Pastel

Posted by Melanie Phillips under Cat Portraits
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Here is the final scan of the cat portrait in pastel of Jemima. It is a 12 x 10 portrait and its hopefully going to the framer this week to be framed. I really like this portrait and the colours overall are lovely and warm. I think it will look great on the wall. I’m off to the framer this week to collect the pencil portrait Nick did a while ago of the lady with her cat which is going to be framed in a traditional wood frame. The framer also has some new traditional wood samples for us to look at for the horse portrait which is to be framed this week too. I will blog them when they are ready.

Toms training went ok yesterday, we had a bit of a break through this week I think and he did bark a lot less. One of the activities was that we all stood in a circle (there are 7 of us in total), dogs sitting at heel and we had to one at a time walk in and out of each other. Tom did so well and didn’t bark once. He only barked when another collie came near but the trainer is so good and she was standing nearest Tom and I. She is taking a real interest in his progress and helping us a lot. We trust her 100% and that’s such a relief knowing that we have a good trainer. We have been invited to their annual Christmas ‘do’ ….dogs not included! It’s a bit of a fancy event and meal in December so we are hoping all of our portraits will be completed by then so we can really kick back and enjoy it. There will be awards for the fastest dogs around the agility course but Tom and I wont even be thinking about that this year, as long as we can get through our sessions without barking we will be happy! Maybe something to work towards for next year! We are taking two weeks off over Christmas as we have lots of family coming so really looking forward to it all now.

portraits in pastel

portraits in pastel

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Fri 22 Oct 2010

Next Stage of Cat Pastel Portrait

Posted by Melanie Phillips under All Work in Progress
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Here are the next stages of Nicks pastel portrait of Jemima, I also took a few photos this morning of him working on the portrait.Its coming along beautifully and will hopefully go in the cat portraits gallery when its complete.

All is well in the studio, I have been doing a lot of admin in these past few days as this is one of our busiest times of the year. I have started a pencil portrait of Bailey, you can see the composite in the clients list on the right, however I have not been able to get to it for a couple of days as I have been dealing with client emails, preparing Nicks next batch of commissions, cutting paper, sorting out the packaging etc. Earlier in the year we purchased a bulk order of Mounts (mats) from the internet, however we have run out of a few of the sizes we need for commissions for Christmas orders. Our artist friend who prints our Giclees on canvas has a professional cutting machine and always has a good supply of mount board so I have learnt how to use the machine (its very clever!) and cut a few different sizes of mounts, including the bespoke size mount for Dai’s portrait. The new mount board is textured and works well with our portraits so we are really pleased, particularly as we can now be much more flexible with our sizes.

I have also designed and ordered a new batch of promotional material for the business which should arrive in the next week or so, I’m really looking forward to seeing how that turns out. I’m off now to start drawing – at last! Its amazing when you are running a business like ours how many other things there are to do, other than actually painting and how much time out of your day it takes. I can’t imagine running our business full time with just one person doing everything, particularly when there’s no way that we could ever employ anyone to help. Its a good job we are organised and streamlined : )

in progress pastel cat portrait

cat pastel portrait

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Wed 20 Oct 2010

Cat Pastel Portrait of Jemima

Posted by Melanie Phillips under All Work in Progress
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These are the first stages of Nicks pastel portrait of Jemima. The photo of Jemima in a tree is pretty much identical to the portrait however Nick will make sure that the branch that has been cut off at the bottom of the portrait doesn’t look as though its Jemima’s paw. From a quick glance it could be confused as her paw, where in actual fact her paw is behind and to the right side. I will add further stages tomorrow.

cat pastel portrait

cat pastel portrait

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Tue 19 Oct 2010

Bespoke Pastel Portrait

Posted by Melanie Phillips under Dog Portraits
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This portrait is for a local client who lives near us and we only met Dai the dog a few times before he sadly died. This will be a lovely reminder of Dai for his owner. The portrait is a bespoke size 15″ x 16″ mounted and we hope to also frame it for the client too. We felt that due to the composition of the photo it needed to be a slightly different shape to the regular sizes we have available, so as  to create an aesthetically pleasing composition. I hope to have a photo of this portrait framed soon, along with quite a few other portraits that are currently at the framers. Its a busy time!

pastel portrait

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