Leopard by Wildlife Artist Karie-Ann Cooper

Well I'm going to call this finished for now, I'm sure I'll be crisping up a few details but really it's 99% completed now. I've really enjoyed this one, and during my work on this piece of wildlife art, I've discovered a few things that are a must...

1. Always use sharp pencils, this is not only a must for any pencil art but particularly for fur when details need to be so fine, but also because a dull blunt pencil seems to drag across drafting film leaving a poor covering of colour.

2. Wax based pencils are more difficult to use on drafting film, the pencils does not enable much layering, and although it is limited on film, oil based pencils seems to work better.

3. If your film gets dirty, simply wash it!!! I did have marks on the bottom of this piece, but I used a well known cleaning brand of wipes and cleaned all around the image. I did find though the cleaning agent on the wipe left a residue all over the film and I nearly had heart failure when it dried out, however after a little bit of experimenting, I found if I used the cleaning wipes (just water did not clean the areas at all) and then dried it with a tissue, the residue was removed and the film was left perfectly clean. If you miss a bit and find more residue just go back over it with a wet wipe and dry it again until you are satisfied.

4. Avoid using an eraser as this will prevent many colours being added after, the eraser leaves a sort of residue on the film prevent much more pencil being laid down.

5. For whisker highlights or bright white areas I recommend a stabilo white pencil, although it is creamy and can drag if not kept very sharp, it goes cover over everything and gives a good clean line.

6. Try not to block areas of colour, the pencil strokes do tend to show up more on drafting film so a flecky appearance is best using lots of tiny pencil marks and filling in gaps with similar shades.

7. Try different coloured backgrounds behind the film to see which looks best, I think it depends on the colours of your portraits, although white does look a little drained.

8. Don't take shots of draft film pieces in sunlight, the image always looks drained of colour (this is true for any support really)

9. Drafting film does seem to dull the pencil colours a little in comparison to paper and board so perhaps a touch of slightly more vibrant colour than expected will brighten up your portrait no end.

10. Blacks do not seem as deep on drafting film and pencils strokes will show through, although this is acceptable, even desired for fur, but a solid black area will not look too good on drafting film so choose your subjects carefully.

If anyone wants to know anymore details please feel free to ask, but I will be using drafting film again, if anyone is interested I've used derwent artists and prismacolor pencils.

If you like my work please take the time to leave me a comment or become a follower (see bottom of page). If you would like to win a pet portrait of your dog, cat, horse or any other pet please see my new competition. It costs nothing to enter, all you require is internet access.

If you are interested in commissioning me please visit my pet portrait artist website or my wildlife artist website

Thanks for visiting!

Leopard by Wildlife Artist Karie-Ann Cooper

Leopard Wildlife Art

Almost on the home straight now, I've completed the yellow/golden fur of the shoulders but I expect I'll go back to add details as I see the need but all that remains really is the fur on the neck area. So pretty soon I'll be thinking about whether to go back to the leopard on the rocks or trying some more drafting film and I really cannot decide. The thing is I feel this leopard is just so much better standard wise than the one on the rocks that I just don't like it anymore. As everyone knows though, the longer you put something away for, the more difficult it is to restart it. Catch 22!!!

Anyway, as we trotted around our patch we found these little chicks and one had only just hatched. These are jungle fowl chicks and are the 'missing' link between chickens and pheasants, it seems many many moons ago during the course of evolution, these were the basis of chicken and pheasant fowl then depending on the habitiat, they evoloved with ever brighter colours for pheasants (mainly from Asia) or became chickens in most other areas. Anyway, they have now been moved to a more secure pen as the chicks are so small they can literally run through chicken wire and so are now in an old rabbit cage until they are a bit bigger, Mum went too of course to hatch the other eggs. Jungle fowl are quite a small fowl and I would imagine the chicken side of evolution came about with selective breeding to get bigger birds and eggs as they wouldn't make much of a meal (we don't eat them by the way!!)

And shock, horror, I really am not sure what sort of plant this is, I just like it, in a couple of days the blooms appeared and flowered and it's just lovely and sending an invitation to summer. If you know what it is, let me know, I am a dud when it comes to gardening!

If you like my work please take the time to leave me a comment or become a follower (see bottom of page). If you would like to win a pet portrait of your dog, cat, horse or any other pet please see my new competition. It costs nothing to enter, all you require is internet access.

If you are interested in commissioning me please visit my pet portrait artist website or my wildlife artist website

Thanks for visiting!

Leopard by Wildlife Artist Karie-Ann Cooper

Leopard Wildlife Art

For a change I thought I'd focus just on the wildlife art today and show you methodically what I have done (a bit of a novelty for me) after a 4 o'clock start with Willow I decided sleep was a waste of time and got on with the leopard portrat instead. So here goes, above I have completed the mars black and light sienna undertones, as I explained yesterday this was a bit of a mind numbing task but the image emerging on the page so quickly was such a bonus.

So I then added a light brown in the spaces, this almost gives a shadow to each hair and gives the fur more definition and a real look. Still a long way to go though...

so to give the fur it's golden tinge I used raw sienna all over, again the colour just sits in the gaps left so it does look like flecky fur (if that makes sense), now the coat looks more fluffy but I need to add some shadows so I use burnt umber to create shadows and darker areas, I have only done this near the ear so far and must continue all over but on this same area I went back over with a flesh pink pencil to fill any more gaps, this adds a few highlights and also light umber to ensure every gap was filled. I just need to do this all over now. I seem to have a formulation with the colours, I try an area with all the colours I think are needed and then simply copy the order I lay down the colours with, I'm not sure if I need to keep the order of colours the same but maybe the fur will not turn out the same if I swap them about, but I stick to it to the order religiously. I hadn't realised I did this until I lost the raw sienna colour and wouldn't continue with the other colours until I had found it and put a layer down.

Apologies for the lack of consistency with the lighting on the shots, one was taken last night, one was taken very early (pre-dawn) this morning and the final one in daylight near the patio window. I can't take it outside as we've had hail stones and thunder today so it could get a bit wet!!! Anyway I hope that goes to show how I work, I don't always work the same way twice but I hadn't realised how regimented I was with the order of colours. I told you I wasn't the natural arty type, everything is mathematical for me!

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Leopard by Wildlife Artist Karie-Ann Cooper

Leopard Wildlife Art

Ater yet another 5 o'clock start thanks to my lovely puppy Willow, I gave up the idea of sleep and soldiered on with some wildlife art. It's surprising how much you can get done when no one is bothering you for a cup of tea, clean clothes or pets needing feeding and the television blaring. I decided to go for broke and colour everywhere left with the light sienna colour as this has been the undercoating all over the portrait. After several hours of one colour I think I was going a little stir crazy but at last I could get the idea of how the finished piece of wildlife art would look like.

Then after a grey start and the threat of rain, I got back to the portrait and decided to bore myself to tears with mars black, although I do find it mind numbing to use all the the same colour, it did make the portrait look more 'real' sooner than normal, I usually have an eye completed, then maybe a cheek rather than an all over area marked out so it's good to see but I still like my tried and tested method of area by area, then I know I've got the colours right and the shapes look ok.

And here of course is the lovely Willow, she has discovered football now and is quite relentless at letting you know she wants to play, thing is even though she's a dog, she still plays better than I do!!! I quite like this pose, I know I'll have to do her portrait before long, she's almost adult looking now at just 5 months, and I think this is one to keep just in case I do it sooner rather than later, unless she gets bigger again of course!!!

Pet Portrait and Wildlife Artist website

Plus of course after another scatty five minutes yesterday evening I decided to change all the keywords on my website so no doubt I'll disappear into oblivion for a few months but I've decided to get on with sorting it out properly and am using an seo programme to get things sorted... at long last. It's swings and roundabouts, you spend time on the website and miss out on art or do art which not many people will see if your website isn't 'up there'!!! Well only time will tell!

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If you like my work please take the time to leave me a comment or become a follower (see bottom of page). If you would like to win a pet portrait of your dog, cat, horse or any other pet please see my new competition. It costs nothing to enter, all you require is internet access.

If you are interested in commissioning me please visit my pet portrait artist website or my wildlife artist website

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Leopard by Wildlife Artist Karie-Ann Cooper

I've started work on the neck fur on this leopard wildlife art portrait. I've added only a couple of colours so far and will add increasingly darker colours as I work the area more. These few colours alone have meant a few hours work in order to get the fur direction right and give the impression of mass. I've also been back over some of the whiskers with the stabilo white to make them stand out more against the fairly light coloured fur of the face. Still a long way to go though with this one!

Plus I've been out in the garden this evening, we are expecting a weekend full of rain so it was pen cleaning time and all my little friends had a run about in case they don't get much chance tomorrow and Sunday. Click on the picture above to see them all and their names as they are running about!!!

And you can see Willow's certificate she received for passing puppy training, isn't she clever!!!

And now for news on Sweep my poorly guinea pig. I collected him from the vets last night, unfortunately his teeth are not the cause of his weight loss as they were in fact in perfect order, the vet now thinks he has a digestive problem and has prescribed some pro-biotics to help him, alas he won't drink his water with it in nor will he eat his food with it sprinkled on, now I am aware of this I have to go to the chemists to buy a syringe and make him take it, no mean feat as guinea pigs are quite stubborn little monsters when they want to be!

Anyway, here he is trying to get to Treacle, the female guinea pig, doesn't look much wrong with him there though does there!?!

I've also added some more pics to my Flickr account for you to take a look at.

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If you like my work please take the time to leave me a comment or become a follower (see bottom of page). If you would like to win a pet portrait of your dog, cat, horse or any other pet please see my new competition. It costs nothing to enter, all you require is internet access.

If you are interested in commissioning me please visit my pet portrait artist website or my wildlife artist website

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Leopard by Wildlife Artist Karie-Ann Cooper

Well my portrait didn't get too far today after an emergency appointment at the vet's for my guinea pig, Sweep. I'd noticed he was off his food for a few days so enough was enough and off we went, good job I did too, he is having surgery tomorrow as his tooth had overgrown and was cutting his tongue making it difficult for him to eat, poor thing. He squeaked and squealed at the vet's which I've never known before, he registered his annoyance at not being out in his pen in the sunshine!

Sooty and Sweep (Sweep has the patch of orange on his side) Anyway he was more than happy when we got home and he could run about in the grass!

DON'T FORGET MY WILDLIFE COMPETITION

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pet portraits website wildlife art website

If you like my work please take the time to leave me a comment or become a follower (see bottom of page). If you would like to win a pet portrait of your dog, cat, horse or any other pet please see my new competition. It costs nothing to enter, all you require is internet access.

If you are interested in commissioning me please visit my pet portrait artist website or my wildlife artist website

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Leopard by Wildlife Artist Karie-Ann Cooper

Today has been just awful, I think I've had the worst headache I can ever remember, in fact I know I've never had a worse one, if it was a migraine I feel every sympathy for those who suffer them a lot, if it wasn't as bad as a migraine I just don't know how people cope with them. I got dressed for work and so on but my headache got increasingly worse and I was unable to even look out of the window. Unfortunately work was a no go today, I had to lie in a darkened room for a few hours until I could even stand up, hence a lack of progress on my portrait and this was where I had got to yesterday evening.

I must give credit to David Stribbling for his wonderful reference image I am using for my leopard.

Luckily by teatime I did feel better and this was the state of the rabbit pen, please note the umbrellas, they are to stop my little furry friends from getting too hot!

Plus of course, here is my Willow, she also had a day off work, I must say she is the best foot warmer on the planet, her fur is lovely to keep my toes nice and cosy!

DON'T FORGET MY WILDLIFE COMPETITION

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pet portraits website wildlife art website

If you like my work please take the time to leave me a comment or become a follower (see bottom of page). If you would like to win a pet portrait of your dog, cat, horse or any other pet please see my new competition. It costs nothing to enter, all you require is internet access.

If you are interested in commissioning me please visit my pet portrait artist website or my wildlife artist website

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Leopard by Wildlife Artist Karie-Ann Cooper

Well this is where I've got to, I'm not sure whether I'm keen or whether it's just so much quicker working on drafting film but I think the leopard is appearing before my very eyes!!! I've really got stuck in yesterday, no guilt now that Patch is complete and now I know I will go back to the amur leopard on rocks when I've cleared my head of grey!!! Unfortunately my photo editing skills have let me down again, I took this image out in the glorious sunshine and as a result there is a sun reflection on the bottom right corner (yes I did say sun reflection) but I really don't care as it was such a lovely day.

Due to the sunny weather I let all the rabbits and guinea pigs out in their pens and here is a little video of Bob the rabbit and Treacle the guinea pig playing tug of war with a dandilion leaf! There were several more rounds but I didn't manage to film them all.

I've also added more photos to my Flickr account for you to see, these are a few of them

This is our acer tree, unfortunately some wally (Ronnie) planted it in front of the kitchen window, he keeps threatening to cut it down, but it's so odd but pretty I won't let him. Most trees start to green up in spring, this one starts out almost cerise pink, as the summer goes on it goes green, no one knows what it is, Ronnie's brother is a gardener and has a degree but even he is quite literally stumped on this one!

And one of the worst jobs is filling all of the water containers each day for the birds, here you can see the newest assistant on the block, alias Willow, who decided to steal the container instead of help out!!! We found it under a bush later.

And this is a pear tree in the middle of the goose pen, it is a local pear, called the Blakeney Pear Tree, in years gone by, Ronnie's parents planted all of the orchard with pear and apple trees for Bulmers the cider company, (they make my favourite drink of all, Strongbow!) they tended the trees throughout the year for the cider company plus market gardened 10 acres of land. The house next door, which is very small, was Ronnie's father's apple store, now a family live there!!! In past years when there was a bumper crop of pears Ronnie came home to find his geese had eaten them after they had fermented and they were all wobbling about a bit, bet they had a headache!!!

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If you like my work please take the time to leave me a comment or become a follower (see bottom of page). If you would like to win a pet portrait of your dog, cat, horse or any other pet please see my new competition. It costs nothing to enter, all you require is internet access.

If you are interested in commissioning me please visit my pet portrait artist website or my wildlife artist website

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Leopard by Wildlife Artist Karie-Ann Cooper

It just shows it's worth persevering, I really don't remember liking drafting film before, in fact I think I found it annoying, not this time after having adapted my technique it seems like a dream to work on! Instead of putting down a solid layer of base colour, I am putting down a layer of fur in the lightest shade, I then simply go back with ever darkening colours and fill in the gaps giving the illusion of ur, and it seems to work, as usual Willow woke me up at 5.30am and since then I have been sat watching the Chinese Grand Prix and working on the leopard. Again it's quite a big piece, this one will be A3 when completed. And I've also completed Patch, I've just sent the portrait for approval and will update that asap.

DON'T FORGET MY WILDLIFE COMPETITION

Please visit here for a chance to win your wildlife image as a piece of art. Ends 30th April 2009

Thanks for visiting my blog, please come back again, your comments are very welcome

Plus join my link exchange for websites and blogs.
pet portraits website wildlife art website

If you like my work please take the time to leave me a comment or become a follower (see bottom of page). If you would like to win a pet portrait of your dog, cat, horse or any other pet please see my new competition. It costs nothing to enter, all you require is internet access.

If you are interested in commissioning me please visit my pet portrait artist website or my wildlife artist website

Thanks for visiting!

Leopard by Wildlife Artist Karie-Ann Cooper

After a 5am start, thanks to Willow and a temper tantrum by myself about my leopard wildlife portrait, too much grey going on for me today, I decided to start something new. My leopard is not forgotten but I need to leave it a while and go back to see if things make more sense. As I've already explained I need to build up some pieces to display at the gallery, I thought rather than persist with the leopard on rocks and make a hash of things in temper, I'd leave it and start another leopard instead!!! I thought I'd give myself a break by way of a change and I am going to try drafting film again. I've tried it twice I think and neither occasion filled me with joy, but now I realise my technique must be altered to use it I'll try again. I have to remember I cannot blend as normal and have changed from derwent coloursoft to derwent artists pencils as they are much harder and suitable I think, I didn't try them last time and found my coloursoft pencils were sliiping all over the place. Using drafting film means very few layers, which is a bit against my style but nevertheless, nothing ventured, nothing gained!!!

Plus I have bad news from the garden, our tragopan pheasant who featured in my post a few days ago has died, we cannot figure out why as he was displaying to his mate and she is now laying her eggs but we found him dead as a dodo this morning. I saw him yesterday and he looked fine, he was plump and hungry so I really don't know what happened. The trouble is they take 3 years to mature before breeding and last year was his first time and all four their eggs were fertile. To get another means getting a young bird and waiting another 3 years and by then the female we have will be too old. Buying a mature tragopan is like getting a mortgage so it's a bit of a disaster today. Plus one of the rescue hens has died, it's quite sad as she survived her year as a deep litter hen and then had a chance at freedom but died. She probably had a disease before getting here but I still feel so sorry for her.

Anyway on a more cheery note, it was very nice outside today so all of the rabbits and guinea pigs spent from 10am until 8pm out in the garden, plus you can see Willow and Zac playing on the lawn below....

...I think Willow is now a touch taller than Zac, at 4 months that's not bad! Zac is about 11 or 12 now and it won't be long before he gets overtaken by my girl!!!

DON'T FORGET MY WILDLIFE COMPETITION

Please visit here for a chance to win your wildlife image as a piece of art. Ends 30th April 2009

Thanks for visiting my blog, please come back again, your comments are very welcome

Plus join my link exchange for websites and blogs.
pet portraits website wildlife art website

If you like my work please take the time to leave me a comment or become a follower (see bottom of page). If you would like to win a pet portrait of your dog, cat, horse or any other pet please see my new competition. It costs nothing to enter, all you require is internet access.

If you are interested in commissioning me please visit my pet portrait artist website or my wildlife artist website

Thanks for visiting!

Amur Leopard by Wildlife Artist Karie-Ann Cooper

More grey and yet more grey. This is becoming rather mind bending now! Next time I approach a portrait like this my planning will be better. I worked on the main body of the leopard first, now I think I may have been better doing the background first instead. With other media certain things have to be done first, acrylics and oils require a background be put in place at the beginning but coloured pencils enable me to work wherever I want to on the portrait, but I feel I've done the exciting bit now and the boring grey stuff is going very slowly so perhaps I should have gotten it out of the way first and maybe it would be less of a chore towards the end!

I've also some good news, a gallery is very interested in my work and I have an appointment to see them in the very near future. I will of course need to do some more pieces as most previous work has been pet portraits which have all been delivered to customers. I really need to build up a portfoilo now and have decided it will be mainly wildlife art so watch this space as new ones appear. I've already sourced a large amount of images which are not in use on the internet so I will be able to produce work which has not been covered by the masses already!

Also we went to visit Ronnie's god-daughters yesterday, Pippa and Laura, here they are...

...with Ted the patterdale cross, who is very miserable and Wesley the horse. Their uncle is Nick Trudgian who is a superbly talented artist specialising in aviation art but I've been able to find out a few tips by way of his sister-in-law, how clever am I!?! We also took Willow and Gypsy with us for tea which put Ted out quite a bit, he growled and grumped and sat in a chair for most of the evening, unfortunately Gypsy decided he needed a scruffing up but they did sort themselves out after a few minutes and yet again, Gypsy ruled the roost. She amazes me, being all of 7 inches high with the attitude of a bulldozer!

Everyone wanted to keep Willow though and she was quite a polite house guest until she stole a metal scrubbing pad from the bathroom and chewed it to bits all over the carpet, oops. Perhaps if she woke them up at 5am yesterday and 5.30am today to go outside they would probably change their minds. Still I shouldn't complaing as it's better than having to clean up after her. Plus all of my new fish (5 diamond angels, 1 blue leopard angel and 6 golden gouramis) have settled in nicely into my fishtank. It's probably a couple of years since I bought any fish and unfortunately fish do not have as long a life span as other pets so always need restocking.

Well it's raining like mad so I'm determined to do some art today of epic proportions. I have a few bits and bobs to sort out, one of which is still Patch from an embarassingly long time ago now, I have promised myself Patch's portrait will be completed this week and it will be then I can get my portfolio looking a bit more spick and span. I'm also still tying to figure how to host my blog on my website so if anyone does have any advice on how to do it a non-classic template I would be very grateful.

DON'T FORGET MY WILDLIFE COMPETITION

Please visit here for a chance to win your wildlife image as a piece of art. Ends 30th April 2009

Thanks for visiting my blog, please come back again, your comments are very welcome

Plus join my link exchange for websites and blogs.
pet portraits website wildlife art website

If you like my work please take the time to leave me a comment or become a follower (see bottom of page). If you would like to win a pet portrait of your dog, cat, horse or any other pet please see my new competition. It costs nothing to enter, all you require is internet access.

If you are interested in commissioning me please visit my pet portrait artist website or my wildlife artist website

Thanks for visiting!

Website and blog overhaul

I've added some more images to my flickr account of our pheasants and fowls today. Some of these birds are just stunning, the colours they display during breeding season are so wonderful. I feel as though we live in a zoo, we regularly have visitors to see our animals, today we had two sets, including a little boy who was enamoured with Willy my rabbit, Willy is such a gentle bunny and he loves a fuss, the little boy, Freddie, fussed him for about half an hour and my little rabit sat still and enjoyed it all. Yesterday we had a little girl and her Dad come to visit and she helped me collect the chicken eggs. I feel so lucky to have all my pets I almost hate going to work (even though I have the best job in the world) I could actually stay at home!

Today has also been an internet day, I did lots of SEO on my website, not sure for a while if it will have any effect but my main problem is (and I'm relying on you techies out there to help me) I want to host my blog on my website, got all the instructions etc but the problem here is I have chosen a non-classic template for my blog and so I cannot move my blog. I've tried the simple notion of changing my blog to a classic template, as required by blogger, but when I go to custom domain, advanced settings, the ftp section asking for details does not appear, I just get told to use a classic template....but I am when I try!!! I've thought about exporting to wordpress and exporting back but this is not possible, thought of starting a new blog (ftp stuff comes up then) but my links won't count, I'm almost bald with pulling my hair out. I'm not a computer expert but usually I get there, read lots, find out via the internet but this time I'm stumped. If anyone can point me in the right direction I would so appreciate it. I sound so obsessed, I hate it when I cannot sort things out. I'm afraid my childhood was spent being called 'twenty-questions' as I need to know the answer for everything, I cannot help but ask 'why?' I drive people mad having to understand how things work, I just can't do something and not know why! I loved maths at school just because it was logical, you had to know why otherwise it wasn't do-able. I have a thirst for knowledge, the unfortunate thing is I retain stuff that just isn't useable!!! Even if I ever host my blog on website, I now need to know how!!!

Back to main point of my blog, art... the amur leopard is coming along, but I still have masses of grey on the page and masses more to do! I won't post an update as I think it looks odd but until more gets put down I won't know if it's wrong.

Willow also had child training today, due to the visitor, Freddie, who was introduced to Willow after his interlude with Willy the rabbit, he spent an hour playing chase and football with her and she thoroughly enjoyed it! When Freddie stopped chasing her, she started chasing him!!! Problem was poor little Freddie was none too good with balance and fell over about twenty times underneath Willow!!! Talking of Willow, I also used her as my model for the photo tips bit on my website, she looks a right poser!!!

DON'T FORGET MY WILDLIFE COMPETITION

Please visit here for a chance to win your wildlife image as a piece of art. Ends 30th April 2009

Thanks for visiting my blog, please come back again, your comments are very welcome

Plus join my link exchange for websites and blogs.  For more pet portraits please visit my pet portraits website

If you like my work please take the time to leave me a comment or become a follower (see bottom of page). If you would like to win a pet portrait of your dog, cat, horse or any other pet please see my new competition. It costs nothing to enter, all you require is internet access.

If you are interested in commissioning me please visit my pet portrait artist website or my wildlife artist website

Thanks for visiting!

Amur Leopard by Wildlife Artist Karie-Ann Cooper

This seems to be taking an age, I work on it almost everyday and yet I don't seem to be getting anywhere fast. My problem is I keep reworking areas, bits I don't like and although plenty of time is being spent on it no more coverage is happening!!! I'm also pretty fed up with grey now, I've found lots of wildlife images I can use and the next one from my batch won't have any grey in it! Good job it's sunny and not a grey miserable day!!!

Done a bit more to my website and blog, I've actually set up my new wildlife art website now, I just cannot publish it! Something is wrong with my host so hold your horses for a while, besides which it is not very full at the moment! I've also added lots of photos to my flickr stream which you can view here or by clicking on the 'pink f' at the top!!! You can subscribe to my flickr stream and get the latest images as I take them as well so now I have to take more photos to keep you all amused! Plus of course, Willow has her own album and you can see just how much she has grown already.

I also decided to sort out my links onto pages for each subject which took a bit of organising I can tell you, it's been all go here!!!

I've also received a few more wildlife image entries for my competition so if you are wanting to enter don't forget the end of this month is the deadline. I am going to add all of the images to my new website, which of course when I get to publish it, you will eventually see them all.

This is one of the photos I added to flickr, this is Rag one of my rescue bunnies, they are off to the vet this month for their mixy and VHD jabs (have you ever tried taking 5 rabbits to the vet at once?) and as there are so many of them they have to go in stages, plus they have to have two jabs each but they can't have them together so it's two trips each as well!!!! It does become a bit problematic when there is a dog who likes rabbits for all the wrong reasons as well sat in the same waiting room!

As for tractor news, we went to tractor parts and auction yesterday but failed to buy anything, it was packed out, the field was full of rusty bits to bid on and two fields were used for parking, tractors must be the newest must have item, wonder if I can sell ours secretly?!?! I took Willow along for her to meet lots of dog and people and she was very well behaved although she did have Patch her friend from work (a little terrier) to chew on for some of the day. Willow is so big now Patch really is just a mouthful for her, Patch didn't seem bothered by this litle fact at all though!!!

Just testing the link to my new website!!!

DON'T FORGET MY WILDLIFE COMPETITION

Please visit here for a chance to win your wildlife image as a piece of art. Ends 30th April 2009

Thanks for visiting my blog, please come back again, your comments are very welcome

Plus join my link exchange for websites and blogs. For more pet portraits please visit my pet portraits website

If you like my work please take the time to leave me a comment or become a follower (see bottom of page). If you would like to win a pet portrait of your dog, cat, horse or any other pet please see my new competition. It costs nothing to enter, all you require is internet access.

If you are interested in commissioning me please visit my pet portrait artist website or my wildlife artist website

Thanks for visiting!

Amur Leopard by Wildlife Artist Karie-Ann Cooper

I've been very busy with my website and blog today. At long last I've managed to add a bar of networking icons, look above!!! I've looked everywhere on the internet for one and in the end I had to build my own, I expect to those of you who are seasoned bloggers and web designers this may seem so simple but I was going spare trying to figure it out. It would have been a lot less effort if I had simply tried to build my own from the beginning rather than spend hours on end trying to find one elsewhere, anyway I'm pretty chuffed with myself so there!!! I've also updated the home page of my blog, it will probably take a few hours for the changes to filter through and I intend to update each page on the website, no mean feat as I have almost 100 pages! I think I'll do a few at a time though. I still may go back to change my homepage so please don't be annoyed if something somewhere doesn't work properly just yet, if you find something broken just let me know. Anyway any comments on my homepage would be appreciated and suggestions would be welcome. I do think though the simpler the design the easy things are to navigate and thus my entire website will need revamping to follow this nugget of knowledge.

And this is the area where wild boar are aplenty. The oak trees provide them with ample food in the form of acorns to forage for and the hemlock at the back provide cover and it was the hemlock trees we were working on. There was plenty of evidence of them being there with muddy areas and chewed branches but luckily yet again they seemed to elude us, thankfully!!!!

DON'T FORGET MY WILDLIFE COMPETITION

Please visit here for a chance to win your wildlife image as a piece of art. Ends 30th April 2009

Thanks for visiting my blog, please come back again, your comments are very welcome

Plus join my link exchange for websites and blogs. For more pet portraits please visit my pet portraits website

If you like my work please take the time to leave me a comment or become a follower (see bottom of page). If you would like to win a pet portrait of your dog, cat, horse or any other pet please see my new competition. It costs nothing to enter, all you require is internet access.

If you are interested in commissioning me please visit my pet portrait artist website or my wildlife artist website

Thanks for visiting!

Amur Leopard by Wildlife Artist Karie-Ann Cooper

Just a bit of an update. This is an odd shot! The colours of the leopard are the truest to the portrait of any shot I've taken so far the odd thing is the background looks very very grey so it would give the impression the coat of the leopard was shown as too dark but it is this colour...honest! I've done a couple more stones, they really do take some time to sort out because it is very difficult to get all the edges, shading and shapes right. It's gonna be a long job I fear!

Also I've now noticed my blog is a page rank 3, I didn't think blogs got that high unless they were CNN, The White House blog or some such thing, wow, my links are paying off then, keep sending them my way!!!

Just to show you how my other half spends his spare time here is the before shot, please excuse the snow though...

And the after...

Not bad hey, please don't tell him I said that though! He now needs a bucket for the front plus this evening we took delivery of the cab bit so that'll be another few weekends sorted out! Alas there is yet another tractor auction on this weekend and no doubt we will be bringing some rusty part back in our new truck!!!

And my news of the day is I was about 6 foot away from wild boar today. We were actually walking along a path when up above me on a bank about 4 foot high was a bit of a grunt and some crashing about in some saplings, Willow was sniffing all the way along until this point and I was just full of terror! We followed tracks of where they had been and saw lots of signs of them digging and 'mooting' about in the puddles and on the ground. I'm beginning to think a meeting is now inevitable so I'll try to have my camera ready, luckily today they or it was gone before I could focus my eyes and I think I'm half relieved I didn't see how big it was!

Anyway just because she was braver than me here is the usual photo of Willow (she now has a new squeaky toy by the way)

DON'T FORGET MY WILDLIFE COMPETITION

Please visit here for a chance to win your wildlife image as a piece of art. Ends 30th April 2009

Thanks for visiting my blog, please come back again, your comments are very welcome

Plus join my link exchange for websites and blogs. For more pet portraits please visit my pet portraits website

If you like my work please take the time to leave me a comment or become a follower (see bottom of page). If you would like to win a pet portrait of your dog, cat, horse or any other pet please see my new competition. It costs nothing to enter, all you require is internet access.

If you are interested in commissioning me please visit my pet portrait artist website or my wildlife artist website

Thanks for visiting!

Amur Leopard by Wildlife Artist Karie-Ann Cooper

Thought I'd add a bit more of an update as this took ages... so long my arm is aching! It's about 20 layers of pencils, they're all stumps now!

It's been such a nice day, all of my rabbits and guinea pigs are outside playing on the grass having a glorious time. It was so warm I even put out their sun brollies (yes I know I'm mad but they do get burnt ears you know!)

So here is the latest tractor project, the 4th one in the last year

This one is in a bit of a state, it's actually dying I think, but Mr Tractor Magic will no doubt sort things out along with his trusty assistant...

...Gypsy who waits patiently at his side even in the pouring rain, she is absolutely obsessed with Ronnie with one exception and that is digging. Other than that she has to sit in the car, on the tractor, on his lap and sleeps on his clothes when she gets near the washing machine, it's true love. She was a recue dog and hated men when we first got her, she was so frightened of Ronnie she kept running away or cowering but time has sorted her out and she is now so loyal we can't even go to the shop without her!

And not forgetting Willow, she has now passed puppy training and has been elevated to the giddy heights of bronze good citizen training from the Kennel Club training scheme. I received a phone call from the dog trainer today to say her new class is earlier thankfully at 7pm instead of 9pm so it will be a great help with feeding all the animals at teatime! Look at those ears, don't they remind you of Batfink? (an English kiddies programme from many moons ago) The ball was her favourite toy until the squeak stopped squeaking! Off to the toy shop we go then!

And a few more pics from around the garden

This is the front side of our house, it's such a shame it's not stone all the way around, it would save so much painting! I was stood in our newly widened gate to take this shot!

And these are wood anenomies which are a little unusual but fill the local woodland every year, these are in clusters all down the side of the lane to our house. Down to the main road there are so many of them they look like a massive blanket, but I'm afraid it's about 2 miles to them and too far for my lazy bones to walk today. (it is my day off)

And now finally for those 7 blogs which I choose to receive this award

1.Gail

2. Colette

3.Vic

4. Pauline

5. Linda

6. Laura

7. Avril

Hooray, at last I've got them down to 7, I think so many more deserve an award, I could give out 7000 I think! All I have to do now is notify them all which I will do so well done to you all!

DON'T FORGET MY WILDLIFE COMPETITION

Please visit here for a chance to win your wildlife image as a piece of art. Ends 30th April 2009

Thanks for visiting my blog, please come back again, your comments are very welcome

Plus join my link exchange for websites and blogs. For more pet portraits please visit my pet portraits website

If you like my work please take the time to leave me a comment or become a follower (see bottom of page). If you would like to win a pet portrait of your dog, cat, horse or any other pet please see my new competition. It costs nothing to enter, all you require is internet access.

If you are interested in commissioning me please visit my pet portrait artist website or my wildlife artist website

Thanks for visiting!

Amur Leopard by Wildlife Artist Karie-Ann Cooper

I've started on the rock work! You can see how I am working on this stage by the half completed rock at the front. I worked from dark to light colours as they seemed to blend together better in this order and this area of the rock is to be quite shady so plenty of dark colours are used. As usual I draw the shapes of the areas out using my technique of 'does that touch that bit, is it darker than that last bit?' and so on. I go through all the colours I need in the rock, about 5 greys, small amounts of black, several blues and even brown then the light areas I blend with a white pencil but the darker areas I use a burnisher on as the white pencil will lighten the colours a lot. When I am satisfied the colours are correctly blended I may go back to add more shadows or use a stabilo white to give highlights as it goes over everything. It's a long way to go yet, this has taken several hours from yesterday evening plus I woke up yet again very early so decided to get on with a bit more. It was frosty outside which was a surprise, I hadn't realised it was so cold, my poor guinea pigs won't be very happy with me as I turned all the heating off in the shed, luckily they do have a thermal blanket at the door plus lots of nice warm bedding! I expect they'll need extra carrots in compensation!

I'll be back later to add those 7 blogs I feel deserving of the painting award, I was blog-hopping the internet last night and have decided on 5 already so I need to find 2 more and will add my list after that.

DON'T FORGET MY WILDLIFE COMPETITION

Please visit here for a chance to win your wildlife image as a piece of art.

Thanks for visiting my blog, please come back again, any comments are very welcome

Plus join my link exchange for websites and blogs.

For more pet portraits please visit my pet portraits website

If you like my work please take the time to leave me a comment or become a follower (see bottom of page). If you would like to win a pet portrait of your dog, cat, horse or any other pet please see my new competition. It costs nothing to enter, all you require is internet access.

If you are interested in commissioning me please visit my pet portrait artist website or my wildlife artist website

Thanks for visiting!

Amur Leopard by Wildlife Artist Karie-Ann Cooper

This should have been yesterday's post but unfortunately there are not enough hours in a day to get everything done so here it is somewhat belatedly along with...

...today's update. The leopard is all but complete now, I will of course go back to edit highlights and shadows as I see fit. The sunlight has washed out the colours yet again showing my poor editing skills but nevermind at least I got a shot! (and it was sunny so I'm not complaining). I'm so pleased with how this is panning out, all I hope is I can keep the background as realistic, the background being monotanous rocks which would provide a good backdrop to show off all the colours of the leopard but which may also be a little mind-numbing (I've already ordered lots of greys, blues and blacks to do it) so I'm hoping my enthusiasm will not wane! To give you some idea of how much work has gone into this so far the leopard is 17" long and 13" deep but by volume I would expect no more than a quarter of the page has been covered over with colour so I've got a mammoth task still ahead. If all goes to plan I think it will be wise of me to take the portrait to a local photographer and have an image taken by a professional for a change!

Also we've been gardening today and tidied up all the hedges, our entrance to the drive is now twice as big to allow us to swing the truck in, it still won't go round in one go but at least you don't take half the hedge down with it anymore!

Anyway here are a few pics of the birdies going about their business as usual

This is a muscovy drake we hatched last year, they are now fully grown apart from two later hatched ones but they will catch up in no time.

And some of our speckled sussex hens were also helping out in the bottom field.

And I do apologise for not passing on the painting award, I've a few more things to do to my blog as I seem to have lost my slideshow at the top right as well so this will get done asap!!!

DON'T FORGET MY WILDLIFE COMPETITION

Please visit here for a chance to win your wildlife image as a piece of art.

Thanks for visiting my blog, please come back again, any comments are very welcome

Plus join my link exchange for websites and blogs.

If you like my work please take the time to leave me a comment or become a follower (see bottom of page). If you would like to win a pet portrait of your dog, cat, horse or any other pet please see my new competition. It costs nothing to enter, all you require is internet access.

If you are interested in commissioning me please visit my pet portrait artist website or my wildlife artist website

Thanks for visiting!

Amur Leopard by Wildlife Artist Karie-Ann Cooper

Almost got a leg now!!! This still looks a bit flat on the leg as although I've added many layers I still need to add more shadows to give it a bit more shape. I've also worked a bit more on the back area so things are beginning to look a bit more whole! I would say the front leg took about 4 hours last night and the back took an hour and a half this afternoon, it's a lot of time to spend doing this and I can see why art is so very expensive to buy, the effort and time it takes to produce something is phenominal plus behind the scenes there are the initial sketches which are rarely thought of by a client let alone seen (but which I don't do, I just work straight on my sketch and not draw out different versions) then there is the actual studying of an image, I find myself lost looking at some images seeing which colours, shading and shapes are involved and this of course adds time as well. It would be so nice to be compensated even the minimum wage for a portrait but none would ever be sold! The good thing is though that I love doing them, they keep me occupied for hours on end so if they never get sold and simply hang on my own wall at least I have an individiual piece but also one that I know I'll have chosen myself!

We also bought a back for our truck which means we can put three dogs in the back with lots of room and manage to keep the seats clean and can travel without wearing a fur coat from the dogs! I'm off to buy a big dog cushion so they can travel in luxury! I tried to take a photo of the back to show you the new toy but it's already too dark outside so I'll try to do it this weekend. I've also decided that as we have a new vehicle, I'm having new signs made up, they will fit better as the current ones are stuck out over the ridges of the truck which does distort the images (that's my reasoning and I'm sticking to it!) so when I get those doen I'll post them as well.

I've also received a few new images for my wildlife competition which you can see at the bottom of this column and these will be added to my website very shortly.

DON'T FORGET MY WILDLIFE COMPETITION

Please visit here for a chance to win your wildlife image as a piece of art.

Thanks for visiting my blog, please come back again, any comments are very welcome

Plus join my link exchange for websites and blogs.

If you like my work please take the time to leave me a comment or become a follower (see bottom of page). If you would like to win a pet portrait of your dog, cat, horse or any other pet please see my new competition. It costs nothing to enter, all you require is internet access.

If you are interested in commissioning me please visit my pet portrait artist website or my wildlife artist website

Thanks for visiting!

Amur Leopard by Wildlife Artist Karie-Ann Cooper

I have completed more of the leopard's back and it's looking as though this area will be completed pretty soon, but not one to do things in order....

You may be able to see if you squint and look away from the sun that I've added the base layer to the legs, now it may give a better idea as to the size of this portrait. The leopard doesn't even cover half of the support so I'm sure to wear down some more pencils soon!!!

Anyway as it's been a while since I've taken some Forestry Commission work photos here are a few, the area above is in the Bark Rack where we saw all the deer featured in the videos, the green on the ground are blue bell leaves and will soon carpet the ground. I hope we get chance to go back at somepoint when they are in flower to take a few photos to blog. It was such a nice area to work on but alas today we finished this contract and are now moving nearer to my house (goodie goodie) but we will probably see some boar there and maybe I'll get them on video as well (not sure if you can film when running in the opposite direction mind you!)

And just to show you how much Willow has grown, she is now nearly as tall as Zac and apparantly is at the top end of her weight, I tried to cut her food down for a couple of days but have decided against it now as she is a big dog, they only weighed her but didn't take her height into account. The 'weapon' next to her is my slasher, this is what I use all day to remove the bark from trees, yesterday we had to use them to remove ivy as well, and it's not the ivy that grows up walls either, it's as thick as a leg in some places where it grows together and we spend what feels like hours chopping it off to measure the trees properly, rarely it is so bad we use a chainsaw!

And here were my partners in crime for the day, Dave and Cassie, Cassie has put up with Willow with so much patience, she's fifteen coming 16 and is just so laid back about everything.

And here you can see the usual state of affairs, I'm usually toddling along at the back singing to myself with my headphones on, even Willow gets fed up waiting for me and lies down on the job!!!

And here is the newest vehicle at the Jones-Cooper ranch, I added my signs straight away!!!

We get the top for it tomorrow.

And finally here is the scene after work, now shush please. I think Ronnie stole that seat on the dog sofa (it really is the dog sofa, how spoilt are they?!?!)

DON'T FORGET MY WILDLIFE COMPETITION

Please visit here for a chance to win your wildlife image as a piece of art.

Thanks for visiting my blog, please come back again, any comments are very welcome

Plus join my link exchange for websites and blogs.

If you like my work please take the time to leave me a comment or become a follower (see bottom of page). If you would like to win a pet portrait of your dog, cat, horse or any other pet please see my new competition. It costs nothing to enter, all you require is internet access.

If you are interested in commissioning me please visit my pet portrait artist website or my wildlife artist website

Thanks for visiting!