We attended Alans funeral today, well cremation ceremony actually. Nick was a bearer and it all went very smoothly. Days like today really make you reflect upon life and appreciate the people around you. We all rush from place to place, complain and moan about people and things, but life is so precious and short, we should stop and think sometimes.

It was an hour and a halfs drive and we had never been to the area before so some map reading and some wrong turns were taken!! We got back mid afternoon. Im off now for a glass of wine – a good way to celebrate Alans life!

Our friend Alan sadly passed away yesterday so we are all a little subdued around here at the moment. He was 84 years old and a wonderful chap and left behind a lovely wife. We are going to the service on Friday.

Trying to get on with work still and have had a chance yesterday to finally rearrange my home page and added my new work on there. I think its all looking a little better now. I have also had a chance to create my new miniature pet portrait drawings page with a link to that on my home page too.

Today I have spent some time finally updating my gallery pages with all the new artwork that I have created since January. Its been so long since I have been able to get the time to add the new pieces. The pencil sketches, coloured pencil gallery and the oil gallery are now hosting all the new pieces of artwork I have been adding to the blog for the last few months! Im gradually getting myself a little more organised and about time I hear you say!!

More Soon!

Here is my final piece that I have scanned today – Chilli. This was quite a task to scan, it ended up being scanned in 8 sections but I think its worked well, I cant see any lines or blurred bits!

Now my task is to update my galleries

Heres Jed, this one is currently on my work in progress page which i have updated with the final scan. I will be moving him soon as i have another new one on my easel I have to add! One more piece to follow this morning!

Heres a lab i finished last week called Bayleigh. I have been so behind this week as usual!! More pics to follow!!

An increasing number of people are asking me whether I have designed another pet portrait website. I feel its now time to set the record straight.

There is another pet portrait website out there that bares a striking resemblance to mine. I did not design this site, and I have no affiliation to the site or the artist whatsoever.

Yes it is very very similar, from the layout, the page navigation titles, right down to the text on each page and it was first pointed out to me in January. What really saddens me is that the ideas that have taken me so long to think up and develop have been replicated without thought or originality. It has even got to the point where I know that if I make a change I can guarantee that within a few days it will be replicated on their website.

Perhaps we can turn this into a new internet challenge, ill introduce a new feature to my site and we will wait and see how long it takes to appear on the other site! Lets see who can be the first to notice!

I bet you thought I had fallen of the face of the earth!! I have been snowed under trying to get some portraits done for deadlines. Ive worked hard on the spaniel this week which has to be dry in time for a birthday in April, I have finished a pencil drawing of a Labrador (ill post here hopefully tomorrow) and I have nearly finished the Airedale.

I have been updating the website today, sorely overdue! My shopping cart pages needed updating, so that done, the archived pages have had a face lift and all the lovely testimonials that my clients have written in the last couple of months have finally gone on the client comments pages. I have now split it into 5 pages as the one page was taking a long time to load and it all looks a bit neater now.

I have had my first affiliate sign up today too on the new look scheme I set up. I have still to move my old people over but these things take time!!

I have had one of my admin days today where i sort out clients, emails, commission, cut paper, print photos, you name it its been done. So its been a busy day and im looking forward to putting my feet up!

Well its been a bit of a stressful week, my pc has been crashing quite a bit over the last month or so, I have been working it too hard!! I needed to reformat so I had to back a lot of things up, which took some time. Its nice to get the pc all clean again and it certainly is running a lot faster! I have most of my programs all sorted and reinstalled; I just need to finish off getting my old files back on. Its taken me a couple for days to get things sorted, hence me not being able to write for a few days!

I have also been working hard on Easton, which I finished earlier in the week and managed to take a scan of it before I reformatted. Im really pleased with how it turned out actually, I like the background colour, I havent done one so dark before and it think it really makes the dog stand out well.

I have also updated my work in progress as I have just started two portraits, funnily enough two spaniels, one English Springer and one cocker spaniel which you can all watch develop over the coming weeks.