Amur Leopard WIP

I know I said I was going to concentrate on my college work...but, I'm waiting for a delivery of new canvases and Pastelmat, and the temptation to paint this amazing leopard just got too great. I'm very fortunate in that a work colleague of my boyfriend is allowing me to use his photos as references. He has some really amazing stuff, and a LOT of squirrels! So there may be a squirrel portrait in the works soon.

I'm very grateful to him and I said I would send him links of my WIPs, so thanks again Jon, and hope you like my interpretations of your brilliant photos! This is only how much I managed to get done today, I started at about 12 o'clock and finally finished the base drawing at about 2. So I only have a background and an ear to show. It's a big one again, 50cm by 70cm on Pastelmat (ofc) Please excuse the bad quality of the photo, my camera battery is charging so this was taken with my phone.

Catch Up Post

Oh dear, it's been ages since I last updated here. Truth be told though, I haven't been doing much regarding art over the past month anyway. I've been travelling to Scotland, then Romania to visit mine and my other half's parents, and it was generally a busy month!

I've decided to focus more on my college work, and I'm currently working on an oil portrait of a horse that will be given in for assessment. I have two more pieces to do to complete my set of work to hand in, and I need to do a big art shop tonight on GreatArt. They gave me a 10%discount code when it was my birthday in December and I can still use it up until the end of this month so I should hopefully get a decent bit off! Once my new supplies have arrived I'll be getting on with the college pieces.

In other news, I decided to get this piece finished so I can concentrate more on my studies.


The reference photo is by http://furlined.deviantart.com/ and I'm hoping to use another of his stock images for one of my next college assignments.

I've also been given permission by one of my other half's work colleagues, to paint any of his huge collection of animal photographs, which is a massive treat! He has a wide variety of animals and birds to choose from, all of an excellent quality and he's given me free reign to use as many as I want, he will also link from his Flickr page to my website and any other places I post the paintings. I'm thinking of giving him prints of the works in exchange for his generosity.

In addition I'm going to be updating the website with new, seperate galleries for all mediums, adding a sale page which will have prints, originals and vouchers for sale, and also I will be offering oil paints for commissions instead of acrylics.

So once my diploma pieces are done I'm hoping to have a lot of new exciting originals on the go. I'll sporadically post my diploma pieces here, if I think they are worthy of being shown, for now, I'm gathering a list of galleries to contact about some of my current originals, then it's time to take Zac for a lovely long walk. Hopefully it won't be too long before I'm posting here again!

One day my Prints will come...

I've been so impatient over the past few days! Last week I ordered some proofs from a printing company I found. There was an attempted delivery on Tuesday, then Wednesday and I finally managed to get them today, and I am so pleased :) I've decided to offer limited edition giclée prints of my originals, I will make a page on my website all about them but I wanted to share some info on them now. Also, from now on commissions will be able to have extra prints made alongside the original, so if clients wish to have copies for friends or family this can be accomodated.

The printers are an accredited fine art printer, with a valid UKAS certificate, and are a member of the Fine Arts Trade Guild which ensures the prints are of the highest quality.

Pastel paintings (example above) will be printed on Hahnemuhle Torchon 285gsm acid free paper, Oil paintings can be on either this paper or Hahnemuhle Leonardo Canvas and pencil portraits will be available on Somerset Enhanced Velvet fine art paper. Also each will have it's own certificate of authenticity. The website will be updated with more info this weekend.

Bernese Mountain Dog - Finished, and a free portrait competition!

Well, it's been a while since I updated last, I won't make any excuses, I just decided to have a little down time, I went back and did some of my Pet Portrait Diploma exercises, had some guests stay and just had a little relax.

Last night I went back and finished off the Bernese picture which has been waiting for a while to be completed. I think he looks beautiful in that full fur coat!

Now for the competition, I'm running a little incentive for people to become fans of mine on Facebook. I'm asking friends there (and others on my website and blog) to recommend people to "Like" my page! Once I get to 150 fans, everyone will be entered into a draw to win a free 12x16 graphite portrait of any pet or person they wish! Everyone likes something for free, so come along and join me on Facebook! Simply click on Facebook on this page or at the side and you'll be taken straight there :)

Lion - Finished!

As I hoped I would, I managed to get the Lion finished yesterday. I took a break in the afternoon and went back for half an hour in the evening to finish off the details. So here he is, Unison pastels on Pastelmat, 50x70cm, and I'm toying with the idea of the name "Pride" suggested to me by a friend.

Lion WIP

Another quickie post today, I'm hoping to have this guy finished today at somepoint so want to spend as much time as I can away from the PC and at the drawing board. More of the lion done, will block the rest of the mane in then go back and pick out more details on the face.

Lion WIP

Another quick post today! I'm busy in the kitchen tonight mastering another art, the art of Sushi! Not completely traditional as I couldn't get any fish quite fresh enough for preparing it raw, and mine will be vegetarian, but it's a fun and complicated dish to prepare! In the meantime, I have done some more work on my lion. Working from the left to the right so as not to smudge as per usual. I've also selected my next few reference pictures for the Pet Portrait Diploma exercises and will beginning work on them as soon as I can, which may mean the original art is on a back burner for a while.

Bernese Mountain Dog

Just a quick update tonight, I had meant to blog about this piece on Sunday but got distracted by cooking, cleaning, all the fun things that need doing on a Sunday afternoon! I was also busy monitoring the progress of the baby pigeons who had hatched months ago in one of the trees in our garden, of which I have some pictures that I will share as soon as I have more time. I also started another original wildlife pastel painting today, most of the background has gone in so I will post the first stages soon, hopefully tomorrow :) In the meantime, here is the second scan of my Bernese Mountain Dog portrait that I am working on in graphite. I like to try and work left to right so as not to smudge anything and tomorrow I will be working on the left part of his face and left ear, so he should look much better once that is done as right now he's looking a little odd!

Fenix Song

I really do need to keep this blog updated more!

I have a finished piece of work to show today, here is "Fenix Song" 18x20 inches, acrylic on canvas. I have been busy pottering about in the garden and generally tidying up the house and updating some things on my website, hopefully I'll have more time to work on some originals in the next couple of months.

"Fenix Song" WIP

Here is a WIP of "Fenix Song" I've been working on for a couple of weeks in acrylics. I decided I wanted to do an original horse painting, I chose the reference from my backlog of photos I've collected and began sketching it on the day of the Newbury races where two horses were killed by electrocution. I've always had problems naming originals so I decided to call this "Fenix Song" parts of the name from both of the horses who died that day, just as my own little remembrance. I've been off and on at this as I had two commissions to finish before the end of February but I've managed to get a fair bit done today although it's still very much in it's early stages.

I haven't done much with the background as of yet, I think I will continue on the horse and see what will suit him afterwards! I'm hoping to get to Warwick races in the next couple of weeks to take some reference photos for inspiration, plus it's always a nice excuse for a day out.

Elephant WIP

I'm working through this slowly but surely. I'm finding it difficult to work on the background so I am having some time out and working on the ears. I will flit back and forth until I feel happy with them both and then move downwards again.

Elephant WIP

Well I didn't manage to come back online last night and post about the work I had done yesterday, so here I am today. I'm hoping to do some more work on this tonight after we are done building things in the new house, but here are the first few stages I did yesterday. This is an African Elephant, done in pastels on A3 size Pastelmat.


The picture is going through the "ugly stage" as I lay down blocks of base colour and work from left to right. I have also left the edges a little fuzzy as I will be mounting this once it is finished and the edges will be covered up.


I've added some violet on top of the sandy brown colour for the skin on his back.



I've then begun to add in some detail to the left, I will continue working on this side and then move slightly to the right once it is done. As always the cropping of my photos leaves a lot to be desired!

If I'm not too tired tonight after building tables and drawers in the new house I will have some more to show tomorrow.