This is my latest portrait I have completed and its ready framed for packing up and posting to the client this week. Its a 10 x 8 graphite pencil portrait of a lovely dog called Molly and I hope that the cleints will have a lovely surprise this Christmas. I will be posting my next portrait soon, its currently in progress and its a spaniel called Connor : )

As you may recognise this portrait from about a week ago, this is a pastel of a spaniel I completed for some clients for Christmas. I have now had the portrait framed and Melanie has taken some photos of it for my blog.

Our framer lives up in the mountains in a beautiful rural idyllic house with two Briard dogs and has a framing workshop which we visit from time to time.  Mike has been working on some new techniques since we saw him last and Melanie spoke to him yesterday about them, and he has a whole new range of frames available for us to promote.  Mike has started creating a unique range of hand finished frames, the kind of thing you can’t buy off the shelf, so that each and every frame is unique for all of our clients. We are pretty excited and will visit him in the New Year to arrange things and I’m sure Melanie will publicize it on the website when they are ready.

The frame below has actually had some hand finishing on it too, Mike worked closely with the colours of the portrait to make sure the moulding matched perfectly with the tones and hues of the dog. I think he has done a superb job and we have sent it off to the client today.

I have been meaning to blog these for a while, however I have been busy in the studio and am a little behind on my blog. These photos were taken by a client who I completed two large oil paintings for of his Labrador called Maxwell earlier this year. One of the paintings is Maxwell as Lord Nelson, and one of him in his favourite place in the Lake District. The paintings are now displayed in the clients home and has kindly allowed me to use them on the website. They have been framed beautifully and both have plaques on the frame with the titles of the paintings. They work well within the clients home, in particular the colours within each painting too. We hope to be working with the same client next year as he has a horse he would like Nick to paint. I hope you enjoy viewing the photos!

This is my latest portrait to come off my easel. Its of two cats who actually look quite similar called Nuggett and Donut, part Norwegian Forest cats. This is for a previous client from Cyprus who ordered a portrait of their familys Salukie last year. We hope to have some time off this weekend, but I will be back to my easel and blogging my next portrait soon.

This portrait is the latest one to come off my easel, its for a client in Switzerland which is my first commission from here. Melanie has always wanted to visit Switzerland and im sure if I had let her we would have delivered the portrait by hand! I am now working on a double cat portrait which I will blog in the next few days.

This is the portrait of Tig framed and you can see the client with the portrait at this post Happy Clients The portrait now lives in Jersey with its owner and they framed the paintings as you can see below. I hope that it will bring back wonderful memories of Tig for the owner. I was delighted to be able to paint Tig and I was also able to meet the clients too, which was great,  as I don’t get to meet clients very often.

Here is my latest portrait completed, I have really enjoyed working with this one,  I  love drawing all animals and I don’t get the chance very often to do different breeds and so this month its been great to not only draw Rocky the goat but a few weeks ago I drew a pet sheep for a different client too. I hope you all like him!

Back in the summer Derwent very kindly sent me a new product they had released for me to try and we promised to review it for them. Both Nick and myself use pencil extenders all the time for our pastel and pencil work and have tried quite a few on the market, so I was very interested to see what Derwent would come up with. They arrived, well packaged and presented, and Nick and I started using them immediately.  If you are anything like us and you use pencils or pastel pencils a lot, they wear down quickly and we feel its too wasteful to throw away a short pencil just because you can’t grip it well enough when drawing, so this certainly extends the life of them – and its being eco friendly! Don’t throw it away unless its come to the end of its life!

So upon using the pencil extenders from Derwent, we loved the smooth but textured feel of the handle, they are lovely to hold, not too heavy and come in two different sizes, the silver is the larger of the two, so takes a lager diameter of pencil, which are great for Derwent Pastel Pencils which Nick uses all the time. They hold the pencils well and have an easy to grip threaded area to open and close the extender, to grip the pencil. This works very well too, and the pencils never move when drawing.

I am being quite genuine here that I would thoroughly recommend them. There are so many products for artists on the market and often my students are overwhelmed when knowing what to buy and what brands to purchase. I will be recommending these to my students and both Nick and myself feel pencil extenders are an important piece of equipment, whether you are working in graphite, pastel, coloured pencil, they work with them all. You can read more about Derwent and the Pencil Extenders by visiting the Derwent Website.

This is my latest commission which is a 16 x 12 pastel portrait of a beautiful spaniel. The photo was very serene and I feel this has come through within the portrait, it also feels to be a very classic pose which has in turn created a classic style of portrait, something that could be hung in any home with any decor. This is one fo the portraits where framing often changes a painting, having an ultra modern frame can create a very up to the minute look suitable for a modern style home, but also having a large oak frame would allow this portrait to be in an old country cottage.

Here is the final scan of the Flat Coated Retriever montage pet portrait. Its a 20 x 16 in graphite pencil and is the second portrait I have completed for this client and im really looking forward to seeing photos of the portrait on the wall with the previous portrait. I think they will make a great pair!