Welcome!
Here you will find up to the minute news from the studio and see the pet portraits we are currently working on. You are more than welcome to contact us at any time!
petportraitartist@gmail.comTraditional Techniques
All of the paintings you see on our blog are commissions from clients worldwide. We traditionally hand paint or draw every pet portrait ourselves. There's no digital trickery involved! We start by drawing out the image by hand and follow on with painting in oils, pastel or in pencil and you can follow each stage we make here on the blog on a daily basis.
Aug
26
We had a request from a lady in the US who commissioned a portrait from another artists and she wasn’t happy with the outcome. She needed the portrait for a special date and so contacted us to see if we could do this for her. We felt so bad that she had a terrible experience with another artist that we accepted the commission and Nick has worked extra hard to get the portrait finished for her. We now have the task of getting the portrait framed asap to send to the recipient in Scotland. They have a pony stud and this portrait is one of their beautiful horses. It bank holiday weekend this weekend so I am hoping we can frame it in time.
Nick has been experimenting with different pastel papers this year and thinks he has finally found the best paper for him. This portrait has been completed on Sennelier paper, a big thanks to our friend Diane for giving us a sample to try. He doesn’t work on Velour any longer as he felt it wasn’t allowing him to progress and take his portraits to the next level. He has recently been using the Clairefontaine Pastelmat which he found to be a very good support, but a little smooth. This Sennelier paper allows him to achieve the balance between soft and sharp detailed techniques that he has been looking for. I think the choice of materials an artist uses is a very personal one and what works well for one artist may not be the best for another. Its always good to experiment.
Aug
2
This is Nicks latest portrait of two beautiful horses in oils on Linen canvas to the size of 24 x 18. He has really enjoyed working on them and they will now be sent to the client for approval. He is hoping to start the small pastel portrait next, for our US client, has already completed one of the two portraits for them and so hopefully I will have a final scan by the end of the week. We are also picking up the chocolate Labrador portrait and the cat portrait from the framers this week too so i will take photos of these and post on the blog.
May
18
This is Nicks latest horse portrait in pastel, its a montage 18 x 14 and its really stunning here in the studio. It doest really show the scale of it on the blog but its pretty large. The background is cream but it hasn’t come out in the photos unfortunately. I have also completed a pencil portrait which I will blog soon too.
May
4
Horse Portrait Oils – The Paintings Creation
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Here is the final scan and stages of Nicks latest horse oil portrait. I really love this one, if you look at the detail of the nose it looks so real and three dimensional, as if you could touch it. I hope that you like it as much as I do. It will be left to dry in our studio for a few days before we can send it to the client. He’s currently back working on the pastel montage and I will hopefully have the next stage of this soon.
Apr
23
Horse Portraits in Pastel – The Paintings Creation
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This portrait has been on Nicks easel for a little while and its now finally completed. You can see the stages below. its an 18 x 14 pastel on velour and was completed for a client to give as a 21st birthday gift. We will hopefully have it framed soon too and I will post the final framed image soon.
Dec
11
These are the final images of the horse portrait I have been working on. Melanie took photos of them today and we have sent them to the client. Hopefully the portrait will be framed this weekend too and Melanie will also take photos so that I can blog them. I’m now working on a pastel portrait of two cats and will blog the first few stages tomorrow.
Dec
3
Horse Pastel Portraits
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This is Indian Magic and was completed for a client in the US and will hopefully be sent in the next few days so that it can be with the customer before Christmas. With it being near to the last week for posting portraits overseas, we like to make sure we are organised and allow enough time for it to arrive in time for it to be framed. This year we are quite organised with our overseas commissions and this is our final overseas portrait for the year. We like to get all oil portraits completed for abroad in November, this then gives them a good amount of time to dry before sending them and then next we make sure the pastels are completed and sent. We haven’t missed a deadline yet so touch wood this will continue, although I have to credit Melanie for organising everything here as she tends to keep things running smoothly! I will blog my next portrait soon.
Nov
17
Final Images of the Three Horse Oil Paintings (nearly the three kings!)
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Oct
19
I have been working on a beautiful horse over this last week called Dimple. The client requested a green field / tree background to give the impression the horse was outside in the field, and I think this has worked well with the composition. I will be emailing a high res scan to the owner and if you require any changes I will be more than happy to alter the portrait for them.
Sep
24
Horse Portraits Commissioned September 2008!
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As many of you will know who follow my blog regularly, these poor horses have been up and down my client list like yo-yos! They were commissioned last September and the client needed them for their daughters 40th and 41st birthday in October this year, which is only a few weeks away. They didn’t mind as long as they were completed and sent for that month. They were started in May of this year and I had thought that I would be able to complete them to send them before the summer, however they have been in the drying rack all of this time as I have been working on current clients portraits. So finally here they are! I needed to make sure that they were completed together, and I don’t think there is much difference between the two. I worked on them at the same time almost, they were on my easel together so that I could make sure I used the same colours for each.
My next portrait is already started, its the two Labradors, it was started a few weeks ago and I will be going back to that one this week and I have also finished a spaniel for a deadline too which I will post as well. Things are getting busy in the studio and we are very nearly booked for Christmas. I think each year we are booked earlier and earlier.
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