Sun 27 Jan 2008
Where have the last three months gone……
Posted by Melanie Phillips under All Work in Progress
[4] Comments
How bad am i, i haven’t blogged for over 3 months! Its sooo bad of me but you just would not believe how much we have done in the last few months. My blog isn’t the only thing that has suffered, i have been so behind on my friends emails im sure they all must think i have dropped off the planet!
So what have we been doing you ask?
Well first of all we have moved! We are only a short way away from our previous home, but we are closer to amenities although still very rural which is great. The cottage is about 300 years old and still retains the character of an oldy worldy cottage. It has a huge inglenook fireplace and large Oak beams. Its so cosy. We have a large studio which we have been able to design from scratch and I have photos up on my website at the links below.
The Studio
Making of the studio
The Cottage
So we have been working really hard doing decorating and some renovating as we had to have some building work done on the pine end and chimney and we also moved an internal partition. Everything is getting pretty much organised now but it has taken a long time and of course we have been behind on work and emails – and blogging!
At the same time that we moved i was offered to write and illustrate a learn to draw fairies book by new Holland publishers to be published in 2009. It will be my first solo book to be published and i am really excited about it. So at the same time as packing boxes and moving I was trying to get the new studio organised so that i could get back to work as soon as I could. I not only had lots of illustrations to do I needed to be doing pet portrait work at the same time. I started the book illustrations in mid October – after completing my final large painting for the Christmas rush (the spaniel below) and I worked non stop on creating the fairy illustrations. I loved it and really enjoyed working on them and was able to use other mediums too like pastel, coloured pencil, acrylic, watercolour, pen and ink and pencil. I then had the task of writing 25,000 words to explain how to draw and create fairies. This was pretty easy for me as im never lost for words and ended up with 30,000 words! They will need to edit, it but this will be done when they design the book and are fitting the words around the pictures. The deadline for the book was December 4th and i did it with 2 days to spare.
So at this point i thought i would have time to blog, however i came down with a nasty cold which i think was due to working so many long hours and not enough sleep and relaxing time. I just managed to get my portraits complete for the final Christmas rush and almost collapsed with exhaustion a few days before Christmas when i said that’s it no more emails, work for a week! I thought i was recovering form my cold when i came down with another Christmas eve and so felt rotten over the entire Christmas period. Having said that we still all had a lovely Christmas.
The new year arrived and i felt so much better and this was the time to overhaul my website. Yes im mad aren’t I! The problem is that I purchased Adobe Go live a few years ago and they aren’t now making it any more. They have had their final upgrade and that’s it. They are now using Dreamweaver. So I have moved over to dreamweaver but the problem was because i wanted to change so much about my site i had to go through the entire site page by page and change everything by hand. I have probably over 1000 pages. Normally, because my site is so big, i design a page and make it into a template. I can then fit subsequent pages with its content into the same design. It means that if you need to change your navigation, or something on all of the pages you only need to change the template instead of going though each page by hand and it will update it for you. So three weeks later I have now finished and uploaded my new site today! I have new text, new content, new dhtml js navigation and a new way to enlarge pictures. I have created a new look each year with my own designs and layouts and updated the site to keep up with the latest technology. I am hoping i wont have to redo the site next year as it shouldn’t need so much work doing to it…but don’t hold me to it! Each time I update it though, I smooth out more problems my clients have so its always a work in progress.
So go and see it and let me know if you find any errors or generally what you think as im always interested in any positive or negative comments. I always know that things can be improved and i strive to make it the best i can, but can only do this with other peoples help.
So this is such a long post I think I will add my newest work tomorrow and I will copy this over to my other blog too so that everyone can get caught up on the last three months of work! Ill be back tomorrow – i promise. : )
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Welcome to our Portraits In Progress Blog. Our portraits are posted here in stages so that everyone can see their portrait develop, along with news from the studio and Tom our rescue dog. Don't hesitate to contact us at any time!
Nick will be completing this 16 x 12 Pastel Portrait, framed and it is for a client in Ireland. They wanted Max depicted with his coat on, sitting in his favourite place. 
These two 10 x 8 portraits will be created in Pencil, by myself (Melanie) and they are hopefully going to be with the client in the USA by the 1st of October for a birthday surprise. We have created portraits for this client before so these will be a lovely addition to their collection. 
This portrait is going to be a 16 x 12 in pastel by Nick. We have completed portraits for these clients in the UK before and this is for a well overdue birthday present!
This will be a 20 x 16 pastel portrait for a UK client and will be added to Nicks horse portraits website as soon as its complete. I think this one will be a stunning one!
This is a 16 x 12 pastel portrait which we will frame for our client who is in the US. Nick will create a subtle mottled background for these two dogs, so that it compliments their coat colours.
This is a special portrait for us as it is for a lady who lives very close to us here in Wales. When we first moved to our cottage she had Dai who sadly has since passed away. We feel very lucky to have met him. This will be a 16 x 12 portrait framed by our local framer. 
This portrait is to be a birthday gift for a UK client on the 5th of October so Nick will be starting this one soon. Its going to be a 12 x 10 oil portrait, sadly Sonny isn't with us any longer so it will be a wonderful surprise to the recipient. 
This is a Christmas commission and its a 12 x 10 portrait which Nick will create in pastel. We will frame this with our local framer. 
Here is a beautiful dog called Ellie and this will be a 12 x 10 portrait that Nick will paint in Oils for a UK client. It will be a great portrait for the website, I hope to take plenty of photos in its development. 
This portrait is going to be completed by myself (Melanie) in oils on canvas for a previous client in the UK. The last portrait I created in early January was a surprise gift for her mums birthday and you can see photos on 
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.