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.

This is a close up of the area I have been working on today. Just a quick post! : )

You tube is back online and heres the vid.

Hi Everyone!

Having been offline for a lot of this week its been very quiet in the studio which is great really as it has allowed me to work on my paintings quite a bit more than usual. The telephone is always ringing and emails are always flowing through here with students, clients, sorting out forum etc that it was actually quite nice to be cut off from the world for a bit.

Anyway heres the latest step by step photos of Roxie, I have taken a video but You Tube are in maintenance at the moment so ill blog that when they are back. Ill also gather my photos of the lab as i haven’t blogged anything of that one yet!

Just a quick post to say that we have been offline for the last few days as a lorry knocked into the telephone wire in our lane. We are guessing it was too tall and maybe got caught up in it. So we haven’t had any internet or phone since Wednesday. It has been Soooo peaceful! : )

Anyway I have been working loads on both big paintings, have another video of the Alsation to put in and some photos and so will blog them tomorrow!

Hi all,

Having been really busy over the last few days I hadn’t had a chance to add an award that Heather very kindly  gave to not just my blog but to Nicks as well. Coincidentally Catherin also sent it to me too! So I have received it from not just one but two artists and I cant thank you enough. My first blog award!

The condition is to pass it on to 7 of your favoruite blogs.  Having received it twice though im not sure that I can award it to 14 people, along with helping Nick with his blog award that’s another 7 to boot : ) I struggle to write my blog let alone read 14 others! So I decided to just name a few blogs here that I really enjoy, write a little about them and hope that those who read my blog can gain as much pleasure out of them.

Before I start my list though, I wanted to mention Mike Sibley. I found via Lenes blog that Mike has a blog and I was delighted as he is my all time favourite graphite artist, and to follow his blog would certainly be such a pleasure for me.  I then found that he has put me on his blogroll, I almost fell off my chair! I am absolutely honoured! Thank you! Mike has to be one of the best pencil artist around. I can whole heartedly recommend his book – From Line to Life. I quite often recommend it to my students, and if any of you don’t have a website for your artwork, visit his starving artists website as he has plenty of options for everyone.

Another blog I read is Monas Fur in the Paint blog. She creates some wonderful posts, and I enjoy them because she goes to great lengths to explain things like, making of the paper, printing techniques etc but mostly I enjoy her posts when she has returned from art shows and art fairs and read about the events that happen, the people that she has met, sales techniques and marketing. I have to give it to her for packing her van setting up her stalls, working such long days and then doing it all again somewhere else. Mona is a hard working artist and a great role model!

The few other blogs that I visit are Heathers, Cathrins, Lenes, Tracys and Pencil Wizzard, these are just a  few, and I do try to keep up with all the blogs in my blogroll when I can. As Mona has simmilarly said in a recent post as she has been given an award too, that working hard and painting all day and just living life in general takes away a lot of surfing time. Quite often after working 7 or 8 hours each day after painting my portraits, writing emails, creating composites for clients, sorting commissions, tutoring for the LAC, updating my courses, sorting Nicks clients out and just the general every day running of the business, oh and looking after my pet portrait forum and now looking after the LAC forum and blog….there is so little time left in the day to surf. I don’t get to visit artists website at all these days. And that’s not including living my life too…and sleeping! : )

So to sum up, congratulations to everyone who keeps and maintains a blog. Its hard work, time consuming and often brain taxing when technical problems arise – however I think i can say that it allows others to gain a great insight into our daily lives, often to the writer its very cathartic, and to others who read them, we should feel blessed they take the time to share in it.

This is the final scan of the Horse Pet Portrait in pastel on velour that I  have been working on. The portrait has now been scanned and sent to the client, hopefully to be posted to them this week. My next portrait is of a beautiful horse called Willow which I will be adding stages of later this week. I’m spending today sorting out my next batch of commissions, printing photographs and cutting paper etc.

Hi All,

Its Monday morning and im hopefully going to be putting up a couple of video clips today to update you on Roxies painting, and then tomorrow it will be the turn of the Lab. I have now got the video camera back from mum and so hopefully this will be better quality than the others. They maybe a little longer in loading but I think its worth it, better than watching a shaky low res film anyway : ) I’m learning a lot doing these films and so hopefully each time I do one it will be better than the last. This one is a little fisheyed so Ill see if i can rectify that when I do the next one!

We had a good day yesterday. We worked in the studio for the main part of the day, and then in the afternoon we were outside as it was lovely weather. We even had lunch outside which is am amazing change from a couple of weeks ago when it snowed. We have started work on the garden again, Its early in the year but we have loads to organise. I’m sorting out the raised beds for the veg as I want them a bit higher this year, and Nick is still planning the new woodshed. I’m also currently digging turfs to make paths around the garden and we hopefully can have some stone delivered when its all finished.

We also watched Kung Fu Panda and if any of you haven’t seen it I absolutely highly recommend it. We were in hysterics, Jack Black was so good. I love animated films and looking at the characters faces and especially when they do the preliminary drawings. Now they can draw! The computer animation fascinates me too, and the fast movements in the film were spectacular. Its not often that I can recommend a film but this was one great.

Ok back to my easel! Hope you enjoy the video!

Helo!

I hope you all had a lovely valentines day yesterday, we had a truly lovely day and this morning we were up early for the sunrise, and went for a walk in the miles of forest walks we have near us. This has spurred me on to sort out the album pics and add some forest walk pictures I have been taking this year. The ‘About Us’ section on our website now has a link tolots of photos  in the left hand nav and you can get to it at the link below.!

About Us  Section

I have added some teaser pics below : )

Here are the first couple of stages of my latest horse portrait. For this portrait I have decided to add some simple background tones. I took this approach because the horse has two areas (muzzle and mane) which are too close in tone and colour to the natural colour of my velour paper. Tinting the background helps these features stand out.