I have been sent a wonderful photo of one of my clients with his portrait. It was a surprise gift and he was delighted as you can see. I will be adding the portrait to my website asap. Some of you may have noticed my sites have changed a little over the last few weeks and they are undergoing a huge overhaul by Melanie. Some of the pictures aren’t clickable yet, the whole job is in progress as it takes a long time but hopefully they are a little easier to use and the navigation should be better. Any feedback is always welcome!

These are the next stages to the Labradors portrait. I have been having trouble with taking the photos these last few days, its quite bright in the studio almost too bright in the wrong places : )  so I have been shutting the velux blinds and taking photos with my overhead lamp but of course it shines on the top throwing light down. Off now to take photos of Nicks portrait he has just completed of a horse so that I can email the customer and he can blog his too. I am hoping to have a final scan of this portrait by the end of the week so ill blog it soon.

We are back from Cornwall and had a lovely break..although I was feeling pretty rotten most of the time it was lovely not have to work and also be in a different environment to recharge my batteries. I was looked after wonderfully by Nicks family and luckily I managed to keep my cold to myself  : )

We had some really nice weather too which made all the difference and we visited some amazing gardens and walks. I have added a couple of new albums to my website, the first place we went was Lanhydrock, we have visited before however it is a huuuge estate in Cornwall owned by the National Trust with massive gardens and there is so much to see and everything in the garden changes throughout the year. We were lucky to be visiting at the time the Camellias and the Magnolias were starting to flower. The Magnolia trees were amazing. We then went to a beautiful walk on a different day to a place called Respryn which adjoins the Lanhydrock estate, and the trees are huuge…as you can see in the photo of me tree hugging below! We saw a Dipper too and did take some photos but we needed a longer lens really to get a good shot.

Back to work now and I will post some photos of the Labradors, I have a couple of stages to add and hope to be finished by midweek.

Hi All,

I thought id just check in with everyone to let you know i have been rather quiet this past week or so as I have got an almighty cold..its not man flu…just a cold : ) and started with a sore thought last week and has now gone into full blown yukkiness. We had not had a break since xmas so Nick has bought me down to Cornwall to stay with family so we can have a few days rest and recuperation. Mum is cottage sitting for us so Amram is happy.

On that note we have had to take him to the vet a couple of times, its not good news unfortunately. He is on Diuretics to reduce fluid in his tummy area and will hopefully have a blood test in two weeks, we think its his kidneys so his time is limited unfortunately, however i hear that they can live happily on medication for a while. After being on the tablets for the last week and a half he is feeling much better and has not gone off his food and is happy which is all that matters…i think he is running rings around my mum whos babysitting!

I will check in once I am home and feeling better myself..hopefully refreshed and recuperated! I hope you are all well!

This is my latest pet portrait of a beautiful horse called Willow. The portrait is on a 20 x 16 in size and is pastels on velour. I have nearly completed this portrait and will be adding a final scan here tomorrow.

This is my latest portrait, which is a very special commission. Absolute Horse contacted me in September of last year and asked if I would donate one of my horse paintings to the winner of the National Horse Jumping show in London and also asked if I would send one of my horse portraits so they could promote it on the day. After having lots of pictures and write ups in their Absolute Horse magazine, this is the final portrait for the winner Bianca Dartford. I have added quite a few close ups of the portrait so you can see the detail within the portrait itself along with a few of the early stages.

Here is another stage of the painting! Still working hard on it, busy here in the studio as we are still travelling back and forth feeding the animals at the farm. Will blog more soon!

This is the next stage in the portrait that’s currently on my easel. I’m just about to start on the left hand dog!

Good morning! …..Well its morning here : )

Its Sunday to be exact and I’m up uber early today, the sun is shining which is good although its cold outside and they say there could be rain and snow later! We have a very busy week ahead of us as my parents are going away, so we have to travel twice a day to look after the animals back at the smallholding. They only have 3 cows, a couple of calves, my 6 sheep and the ducks chickens and peacock to look after. Sadly no dog anymore and the cat passed a couple of months ago at the grand age of 19. They are also borrowing the video camera with them so no videos this week until they return either! I may have another format of doing a moving ditty so watch this space!

So im starting off the week with the first two stages of the portrait I’m working on, I’m quite pleased with the way its going. I spent the entire day working on the background yesterday and now I need to leave it to dry for a bit so I’m going to now block in the dogs.

Enjoy your Sunday!

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!