I haven’t made a video for ages as I have been a little busy for ‘extras’, so here is one of me signing the portrait, painting the edges and an overall view of the painting. Hope you like it!

Heelooo!

We have just had a long weekend off with Nicks parents who came up to visit us from Cornwall and we did not stop! We have attacked the front garden and its now weed free, has plenty of horse manure dug in around the plants and we have covered it in bark and it looks lovely and very cottagey! It took us a good two days to make it weed free and to tidy it up as it was getting a little unruly. I have been able to keep the back garden weed free but the front was getting away from me a little so hopefully it will be easier to maintain now. I will hopefully take some photos for you to see soon.

While Nicks parents were here I re-shot the video that was on the top left of my blog. I have posted it below for you to see and I have also added it to our home page too. I hope you like it : )

Finally we have spent the entire day battling our computers and have done the yearly job of reformatting. I am nearly back together, just have the adobe suite to install, but will try to do that tomorrow as its getting late now.

I hope you all had a lovely weekend and also a good fathers day too!

I am finally back into the swing of taking video of the portraits and it was so nice I decided to take this one out in the garden with the tripod so its less wobbly. I hope you enjoy it. It has been a lovely day today the sun shining and the leaves are just coming out which is wonderful.

Hi Everyone,

Here is the final scan of my latest pet portraits and also detail from the painting too, along with a video. I have tried to explain a little about the composition, how it came about and a little about the background. I think im getting a bit better at filming but learning all the time! The painting is as always traditional oils on canvas to the size of 24 x 18. I’m just about to start the two labs you can see in the reference photos left. I have already drawn out the dogs and lined them in, im now going to block the background. Ill blog them tomorrow!

Hello All,

Here is the final scan of the Alsation pet portrait and also a video of it too. Its now completely dry and I just need to paint the underside of the canvas when the sides are dry as I have just painted those.

The blogging of the Alsation is a little belated as I have been outside from Friday till yesterday building a log shed with Nick. We rarely take that amount of days off in one go for a huge project like this, however we needed a place to keep logs in for the winter, the one we had was too small so this was taken down and a new one put in place.  We finished just before the rain came!

I have a few more things to blog, some exciting news too so watch this space!!

Hi All,

I have created a blog video post, can you see a little ‘Mini Me’ in the top left corner??! : ) We had an artist friend over yesterday and I had done my hair for once, so I decided it was a good opportunity to take some video and photos. I wanted to have something interactive to say hi, although I look decidedly tired and in desperate need of a holiday! I will be taking a holdiday soon and then maybe ill re-record it again but its fine for now.

The photos came out well, they are partly for my own pet portrait promotion but also we are having a section on my pet portrait and wildlife forum called Meet the Team. For those readers who aren’t aware, I run a forum for Pet Portrait Artists to chat about materials, paints, techniques etc and it has been running for about 4 years now. We are all very friendly and get on well, its great as there seems to be absolutly no rivalry between the artists which is superb, we are just all there for each other which is what its all about.  I’m that hoping that if I add a photo of myself, the others in the team of helpers on the forum wont be shy and will follow and post something similar in theri section too! : )

If you are interested in meeting the Forum team you can view the post – Meet the Team. Everyone has a holding post at the moment but hopefully people will gradually add their info soon.

You tube is back online and heres the vid.

Hi Everyone,

We still have snow! We had yet another snow flurry, we decided to go for a walk in it as it wasjust gently snowing but it became quite a blizzard and we were freezing by the time we got home! I’m sure it wont last long now though as the forecast says its going to be nice these next few days. I have had a lovely day today painting the rabbits and I have added the stages below.

I have also created my very first video post too! Its been something that I have wanted to do for ages and ages but have never got around to doing it. Its my first one so don’t laugh! I’m hoping to do lots more so ill be practised soon! Id like to see if I can do one for each painting I do, mainly for clients to see almost a live feed of their painting, giving them visually more of an idea of what its like. I’m sure they will be excited and I am hoping to get some positive feedback too.

I have used You Tube to host them so it doesn’t take up too much of my bandwidth, if anyone has problems viewing it, please use the comments box to let me know.