Pet Portraits and Wildlife Art

To all of my valued followers and readers, twitter and facebook followers, please note my blog will now be at this new address very shortly:

www.artbykarie-ann.co.uk/blog.html

Please update our blog rolls and go to the new address to follow me again to keep up to date with my latest news on my pet portraits and wildlife art. You may find the blog undergoing changes but please be patient as I sort things out.

With many thanks to you all for your conitnued support.
Karie.

If you like my work please take the time to leave me a comment or become a follower. 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
Now visit my picasa photo album to see completed pieces of art.

Thanks for visiting!

German Shepherd Pet Portrait

I think I'm nearing the end of this pet portrait now, Arthur still needs a little more work on the black of his coat and obviously I need to finish the legs, my only problem now is wondering what to do with Arthur's tail as it sticks out at the back and could make the portrait look unbalanced so I'll need to see if that's the case, if I need to change it I'll be using Willow as a tail model!

And just a little video of my latest batch of chicks, we found them in our biggest pen and Mother Hen had managed to raise 11 of them in the middle of it successfully! They've all been moved to more suitable accommodation where the are not able to run through the chicken wire and get lost in the garden but mum is still very protective and she gave us a few good pecks when we stole her children for house moving!

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
Now visit my picasa photo album to see completed pieces of art.

Thanks for visiting!

German Shepherd Pet Portrait

So here is the latest update on the german shepherd pet portrait, I'm posting away in my own little world as I'm not sure anyone is able to find me at the moment! Anyway, Arthur's chest is looking more real now, he is very fluffy indeed, it was quite difficult to make the fur look thick and full but I think I got there in the end! Legs are also beginning to appear now as well to give them something to stand on, poor dogs, they've been floating about a bit!!!

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
Now visit my picasa photo album to see completed pieces of art.

Thanks for visiting!

Pet Portraits and Wildlife Art Blog

I'm sure if you manage to find this post you will discover it has moved house! After many a head scratching moment, I finally managed to integrate my blog onto my website, unfortunately I'm now not sure if it was a wise move as there is no layout option and all of the items added in the side bar I've had to add as coding into the html (sounds complicated to us mere mortals, well it was for me!), anyway as a result I've lost nearly 150 followers, so if you did follow me previously, please do so again! The blogs I follow are all still in place but now I'm trying to track down the html for a blogroll to add all of my favourite blogs yet again!!! I've also managed to work on Arthur of the german shepherd pet portrait but my camera battery has fizzled out so I can't take a photo until it's recharged. If anyone out there does find me, please leave me a comment just to let me know I'm not just talking to myself please!!!! Anyway, what do you think of my new brochures?!?

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
Now visit my picasa photo album to see completed pieces of art.
Thanks for visiting!

German Shepherd Pet Portrait

Just a bit further on in terms of coverage but a lot of work on this german shepherd pet portrait. Arthur's chest area is particularly fluffy and it took some doing to recreate the texture without the luxury of layering, plus Macey now has one leg so she's almost stable! Don't forget you should be able to click on any image to see it in further detail, this may allow you to see the amount of pencil work that was required to 'semi' complete Arthur's chest area.

And just because she hasn't appeared for a while, I'd like to you to see how clever Willow is at twisting my arm to get a game of football, first she fetches her ball and waits patiently, she stares at me to get my attention, she's quite keen here....

...next due to a lack of interest on my part she pretends to sulk for sympathy, don't be fooled, if I so much as move a foot she's up trotting around her ball ready for the eagerly awaited kick...

...so next she goes for the direct approach and drops the ball at my feet and does the 'please feel sorry for me and play' look, and guess what...it worked, she got her game of football!

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!

German Shepherd Pet Portrait

Well as promised here is a step by step method I use for creating fur. Stage 1 above, just shows how I add guidelines to get everything in the right place, I used dove and medium grey to mark out the shadows, these may not be dark or light enough at the moment but as there are small gaps between the pencil strokes I can add lighter or darker colours as I see fit. 

Next I used persian grey to create more depth as I felt my initial shadows weren't dark enough, these pencil strokes just sit between the dove and medium grey.

Here I decided to add some highlights to ensure these are in place, for this I use pale peach, this colour rarely shows up on it's own but it will when surrounded by darker colours as I add them a bit later.

Again more highlights, this is light sand and is the perfect shade for the pale golden colour of Macey's fur. I put this all over the area I am working on, then some petrol grey to add bit more depth to the shadows, the good thing about pencils as opposed to paints is you can add colours out of order if needed rather than always from light to dark.

Next a little pale brown to boost the golden hue of the fur and finally I add white grey for even more highlights, I am able to be quite easy with the pencil strokes as very little layering is possible on drafting film so it will only really have any effect where there are gaps between previous pencil marks.

And just to show you how very pale this section is, here it is in the big scheme of things, eventully it will look more realistic as further areas around it are worked. I don't normally just concentrate on one area but this was a lot easier to show how I use colours to produce my portraits. I may well go back to this area and add further low or highlights as I see fit when I can see it in comparison to the areas next to it.
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!

German Shepherd Pet Portrait

The latest on the german shepherd pet portrait, Arthur is now beginning to make an appearance, slowly but surely. You can now get an idea of how much closer together I placed the dogs for a more balanced portrait.

And as promised, the step by step progress of how I produce fur on drafting film. I will carry on working around this area but due to poor light from the bad weather I need to work this so that I can take bright enough photos to show up all the detail. So this is Macey's chest area, I have used white grey to put in place the outline down the legs, they are quite pale so this is an ideal shade to use at this point as it will not show up later on when more colours are added. I have already mapped out a few of the shadows in the fur of the chest area, I have used dove grey and mid grey, these are both relatively pale but there is enough room between the pencil strokes to add lighter or darker shades as I see fit. I hope you find this interesting!

And finally, Willow was awarded her bronze award for dog training last night. She was very very good, even the examiner was so surprised by how laid back she was, part of the exam was allowing another dog to meet Willow without her making any fuss or hassling, Willow just laid down on the floor and went to sleep completely ignorant to her visitor! She also laid on the floor for her minute's stay, her physical check over and her grooming which meant I had to scrabble around the floor as she just dozed off!

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!

German Shepherd Pet Portrait

The german shepherd portrait is now beginning to take shape and Macey is looking a bit more alive than just a mass of scribbles on the page. I had intended to do a stage by stage demo to show how I work an area, I will do this tomorrow now as I took one photo at the beginning of the shoulder area and forgot to take another until I'd almost completed it! So much for memory hey!

I've increased the contrast heavily here to show you how Arthur has been added to the portrait, normally you wouldn't see these guide lines as I do only use very light strokes which are the same colours as the final areas will be so will not show up. As you can see in comparison with the original reference image, I've moved Arthur and Macey a lot closer together to create a more balanced portrait. I couldn't resist working Arthur's eyes though, they just needed to be completed, otherwise he wouldn't see where he was going!

Thanks to everyone who left messages about Pickle, he took a carrot with him just incase he gets a bit peckish on his journey to dandelion meadows.

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!

German Shepherd Pet Portrait

A couple more updates on the german shepherd pet portrait, this is Macey, an 8 year old bitch I am working on so far. I had intended to get further on with this today but other problems arose.

I have started work on the body in this next update of the pet portrait, so far I am using about 20 different colours to achieve the fur texture and there is no layering whatsoever, it does prove a bit of a challenge.

And finally... it is with real sadness that I have to report poor Pickle died today, it seems he suffered a stroke and came bounding out of his little igloo this morning all lop-sided. I can honestly say I am quite gutted as although he was tame, since his operation he had been a little spoilt and had come to live in the living room in a carry cage. As well as his excursions out into his pen in the garden he was allowed to sit on my lap every evening to watch tv and he would come out of his cage just to be with us so he did become something of a special pet. I feel a bit silly saying I'm more than a bit upset about a little guinea pig but he was, as are all the others, a rescue, he was originally called Snowflake and had been taken back to the shop and was desperately seeking a home at almost 1 year old, so you already know what happened next, as with all strays, he came to live with us a few years ago and really did have the life of guinea pig dreams. Anyway, I now have to decide whether or not to replace him or not to give another little piggy a good home, but it's far too soon to even think about that. Hilariously, all of our pets receive a full burial, little coffins and a stone in the garden (I think we put stones on them to remind us were they are as we have a big garden and it would be awful to dig them up or forget who was where!) So Pickle is going to join Pip, Squeak, Clover and Pixie in guinea pig heaven, I hope they get lots of dandelions!

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!

German Shepherd Pet Portrait

Hi ho hi ho it's off to work we go! I'm hoping to speed up my work rate as I have quite a few portraits in hand at the moment, I'm not complaining, it's good to have them but I want to plough on rather than dawdle as I usually tend to. I did say my future portraits list was in no particular order and I will be working them to reach deadlines and moving them around to ensure everyone gets their portraits when they are needed. Therefore, I've made a start with Arthur and Macey's pet portrait. These two beautiful german shepherds came to my house for a photo session and I have to say they were much much larger than Willow so I'm in no doubt she'll be growing some more in the future. This is the beginning of Macey's head, she is 8 years old whereas Arthur is 7. They are very well behaved german shepherds (they do belong to a dog trainer so they should be!) and were a joy to have visit. Arthur did show interest in my rabbit Rex but other than that both were chicken, goose and pheasant friendly luckily and they strolled around without any problems at all.

And here is one of my favourite sights of the summer, the humble bumble bee, this one was busy on the lawn, Willow does take an interest in these as well as flies, wasps etc and she tries to catch them. This has now caused near disaster after she found a wasp nest in the woods and got stung on the nose several times, her face rapidly swelled up and I did begin to worry that maybe she had managed to swallow one which could make her throat swell up, after a good wasp removal session with the help of Dave we managed to get them all off her and a few hours later her face was back to normal. I'm hoping the stings were quite bad so she'll ignore them in future but somehow I doubt it.

And for anyone wondering about Pickle, and just for Sheila, here he is, out and about in the grass. He is in urgent need of putting on weight and loves munching through grass so at every opportunity I put him out in his pen.

And finally, my babies on a walk in the woods behind our house. There are quite a few rambling trails around us but I especially like one route out of the way where not may others venture, for one thing it's too far and a bit off the main track, the only thing is it does have a few puddles which Willow loves, she knows where they are so runs ahead to stand in them and then defend them from Zac and Gypsy, her favourite but filthy game.

She's the queen of the puddle, 3 of them Willow decided to splash about in, Zac was wise by this point and stayed behind me so he didn't get involved but Gypsy loves it and by the time we get home she's usually covered in mud, dirt, red puddle water and and bramble and very far from white!

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!

If you go down in the woods today....

At last I have had a close encounter with some boar, I say at last because it did turn out to be a bit of a relief! We met 12 piglets and 2 sows and at a guess the sows were last year's young as they were large dog sized, probably about 80lbs whereas the large boar are probably 3 times as heavy as that! The sows spotted us and started to trot off up into the woods and the little ones shot off like bats out of hell, they can hurdle and charge along faster than any other animal I've seen in the wood including deer! They must have had turbo engines! Willow was quite interested so I put her on a lead but this did prove very problematic as she kept going around the wrong side of the trees and we got a bit tangled up so I had to let her off again, luckily she was good and did not venture off sniffing so all is well in boarland! This one above is a Forest of Dean boar and the photo was taken by our previous wildlife ranger who has now moved to Lincoln but he kindly let me use it, I really am not sure I could have captured the troop on camera as for one thing they were so fast but for another I was too busy making sure Willow didn't give chase. Imagine meeting one of these in the dark!! No thank you!

If you like my work please take the time to leave me a comment or become a follower (see bottom of page). Thanks for visiting!

Also 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.

Blog Award and Future Portraits

I've been given this Premio Meme award by Doreen Cross of http://www.dorsart.blogspot.com/ and just take a look at her header image, it's such a lovely chocolate box cottage, I want to live there and also by Christine Perry of http://www.creativelifestudio.blogspot.com/ who does amazing people portraits in graphite pencil.

Now for the important bits, I need to list 7 things about myself.... sorry about this but....

1. I am gadget mad, digital cameras, slr cameras, mp3 players, digital video cameras and so on, I could play with them for hours, never reading any instructions at all and luckily I've never blown anything up to date!

2. I'm not keen on children (should I really say that?) I prefer feathers, four legs or fur myself, all are welcome at my house! My home is not a zoo! I wish our constant stream of visitors who bring their children and expect a few hours of free entertainment from my bunnies, guinea piggies, puppies and fowl would please leave me alone! I just want them all to myself! Will I be shot at dawn?

3. I'm a sucker for a sob story, not films mind you, any poor animal which is looking for a home inevitably ends up at my house, 5 rescue rabbits, 4 guinea pigs and a limitless supply of cockrals will all testify that I will take them in!

4. I have just spent over £100 on a guinea pig who had a bladder stone (Pickle) and once had a rabbit with such bad teeth he cost me well over £200 in opertions to stop them growing so crookedly....don't tell Ronnie though!

5. I'm pretty sure I am the only girl tariffer in the country at the Forestry Commission, tomboy or what! Today I waded through clay mud and suffered a severe downpour of heavy rain all in the line of duty.

6. I hate shopping, any kind, grocery, clothes, household, the only kind of shopping I enjoy is fish shop shopping (try saying that after a beer) for my aquariums.

7. I hate flies, they make my skin crawl, I don't mind snakes and spiders at all but flies just make me feel ill. Yuk.

Now I must pass this to 7 others I feel deserving of such an award, however I'll be completely blatant in passing it to some of my most loyal followers who constantly leave me comments and encourage me to continue along my artist's path!

1.http://kathleen-coy.blogspot.com/ meet Cloud her doggie too!

2.http://portraitsthatbite.blogspot.com/ I loved her pelican portrait

3.http://artwithliz.blogspot.com/ a South African artist (lucky lady)

4.http://artwithapencil.blogspot.com/ a fellow pencil portrait artist

5.http://sheilatajima.blogspot.com/ a lady who does an immense amount for rescue animals

6.http://jeannegrant.blogspot.com/ she has the most wonderful field trips, I'm so jealous

7.http://artbygail.blogspot.com/ I just love her ravens!!!!

All of the above blogs are well worth visiting, I visit them all very often and look at the stunning artwork on each so do take a few minutes to meet some new friends and artists.

Also I have updated my future portraits list as much as possible in the right hand column, I am still waiting for a further three dog photos and will add them as soon as possible. Please ignore the order they are posted in as this may not neccesarily be the order I work them in as some are for Christmas presents (can you believe it) so others may get slotted in or put aside for the time being. Phew I think I am going to be a bit busy for a while and at least it keeps me out of trouble!

Anyway Willow and I are off for our last training session before her bronze exam so please all keep your fingers crossed for us for a week as we need all the help we can get!!!!

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!

Pet Portrait Competition Entry No 6

Meet Sarah. Click on the image to see more detail.

This is what her owner has to say...

This is our beloved cat Sarah. She died last October but we had 17 fun filled years together. We have 2 dogs and 2 other cats but Sarah was hubby's favourite. It would be great to have a special portrait of her for him to look at and remember her by. She was full of "purrsonality" and we miss her very much.

If you would like this image to be painted as a pet portrait please leave a comment from 1st January to 1st July 2010 stating 'vote' somewhere in the comment, any comments not stating 'vote' will not be counted. Non voting comments are also accepted.

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!

springer spaniel pet portrait

As promised, the update on Brodie's pet portrait! It's been a problem posting this image as dear Willow decided to eat the ethernet cable, the modem router plug, the telephone cable, the spare internet cable, the vacuum cleaner plug and a wind-up dancing chicken! I have no idea what came over her but she was not in good books, the next day things were back to normal with no damage and she was well behaved as though nothing had happened, however I have not been able get onto the internet or check my emails until today!

Anyway back to business, I mounted and framed Bodie and Snoop for collection today. We met Snoop's Dad at Ledbury auction and he was very pleased with the outcome. I also managed to bid for and buy a huge pub sandwich board which will be renovated and put by my gate advertising my wares, my only ever purchase from the auction so I was very pleased!

And yesterday my garden was over-run with dogs posing for future portraits, as soon as I plough through the many photos I took I'll update the future portraits images.

Plus I also visited this lovely horse and his stable mates to get some shots for portraits (he has actually recovered from a broken leg and was in a sling for about six weeks) and again as soon as I can I'll update the future portraits list.

I've also received a bumper load of unsuitable images for my pet portrait competition, if you are thinking of entering, as it's completely free, please do just take a few minutes to read the entry details, this will prevent your images being rejected, please bear in mind images taken on camera phones are generally too poor to use, I really cannot work from something the size of a postage stamp!

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!

Pet Portrait Competition Entry No 5

Meet Reggie. Click on the image to see more detail.

This is the second of two entries for her.

This is what her owner has to say...

Hi, Karie-Ann! I wanted to enter a few pics of my American Eskimo Dog (German Spitz), Reggie for your contest. I'm a huge fan of your work, so I'm thrilled that you're running a contest!! She's a photogenic little bugger, as all Eskies are, so I hope you enjoy her pictures. The first is of her at 1 year old, with one of her little lobster friends and the other is at 2 from the holidays. Reggie was born in Oct. 2005, loves squeaky lobsters, homemade flatbread, and car rides to her grandparents' house. She loves to play with both of her grandparents' Golden Retrievers and sometimes I wonder if she thinks she is one! She's just a happy little dog who loves to snuggle, take care of you when you're sick and tell you when the phone is ringing, also just let you know she's cute. Thank you for your consideration!

If you would like this image to be painted as a pet portrait please leave a comment from 1st January to 1st July 2010 stating 'vote' somewhere in the comment, any comments not stating 'vote' will not be counted. Non voting comments are also accepted.

If you like my work please take the time to leave me a comment or become a follower (see bottom of page). Thanks for visiting!

Also 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.

Pet Portrait Competition Entry No 4

Meet Reggie. Click on the image to see more detail.

This is the first of two entries for her.

This is what her owner has to say...

Hi, Karie-Ann! I wanted to enter a few pics of my American Eskimo Dog (German Spitz), Reggie for your contest. I'm a huge fan of your work, so I'm thrilled that you're running a contest!! She's a photogenic little bugger, as all Eskies are, so I hope you enjoy her pictures. The first is of her at 1 year old, with one of her little lobster friends and the other is at 2 from the holidays. Reggie was born in Oct. 2005, loves squeaky lobsters, homemade flatbread, and car rides to her grandparents' house. She loves to play with both of her grandparents' Golden Retrievers and sometimes I wonder if she thinks she is one! She's just a happy little dog who loves to snuggle, take care of you when you're sick and tell you when the phone is ringing, also just let you know she's cute. Thank you for your consideration!

If you would like this image to be painted as a pet portrait please leave a comment from 1st January to 1st July 2010 stating 'vote' somewhere in the comment, any comments not stating 'vote' will not be counted. Non voting comments are also accepted.

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!

Pet Portrait Competition Entry No 3

Meet Riley . Click on the image to see more detail.

This is what his owner has to say...

Meet Riley (aka El Poopo or Fluffybutt) the giant Pomeranian (he's 14lbs). I love this pic! It's a silly picture and think it could be a good challenge for you (probably not, you are so very good at what you do!).Thanks!

If you would like this image to be painted as a pet portrait please leave a comment from 1st January to 1st July 2010 stating 'vote' somewhere in the comment, any comments not stating 'vote' will not be counted. Non voting comments are also accepted.

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!

Terrier pet portrait

I think Snoop's pet portrait is 99% complete now. There will of course be minor adjustments I'll carry out as it sits on my drawing board staring up at me. I think I need to add to the darks in some areas to create a more 3d shape in the way of shadows, but basically it will be such a small change it won't be worth blogging about again so I'll be getting back to Brodie asap.

Willow and myself have had a minor disagreement this evening at dog training, I forgot her favourite treats therfore Willow decided she would not make do with second best and would only co-operate when she felt like it! Any only a week or so away from the test for her bronze award, it's looking shaky now!

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!

Terrier pet portrait

I thought I'd post the pet portrait progress a bit earlier today as it's the tennis final at Wimbeldon in a while and I have to get my television out in the garden, put all of my rabbits out, put the shopping away and walk Willow, phew, I'm tired just thinking about it! I'm nearing the end now with Snoop's pet portrait and he is missing just an ear, then it will be off to the frames shop to mount and frame both Snoop and Bodie, then I promise to get back to Brodie!

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!

Terrier pet portrait

A couple more updates on Snoop's pet portrait, I'm still working around the nose area! I had not planned on working in a circular motion but once I'd noticed it, it seems to be all I think about as I'm busy beavering away!

This was after a bit more was completed but it would have been more but I became obsessed with the tennis (Murray v Roddick) and all of a sudden I felt quite old, I remember my first viewing of tennis when I was at primary school and a teacher took us for a walk, half way around it tipped down with rain and we went to her house, low and behold she put the tennis on to keep us quiet and I was hooked. Since my years of watching all the grandslams (some via teletext before cable was invented) I remember Jimmy Conners and John McConroe then Boris Becker and Stefan Edberg's battles the most and it was a nice change today to think a Brit could go all the way, alas it was not meant to be, but I was glued to my tele in the garden (I had to let my rabbits out) all afternoon! My excuse for the next few weeks is the tour de france so be prepared for more stoppages!

And I'm glad to report my passion flower has decided to breath again, after the hard frosts of the winter (hard frosts seem a long time ago after the week of heat waves we've had) I though it had given up the ghost and was ready to dig it up, then suddenly it sprang back to life, it covers my rabbit shed and looks lovely in the summer so I am happy it didn't quite flake out on me!

And this week at work has been hard, we were down to a two man crew plus the heat was just painful, even Willow had tired paws!

Although she did recover enough to pose with her best friend Gypsy.

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!

Terrier pet portrait

Things have moved on a little with my latest pet portrait (I know I haven't updated Brodie yet, I will very soon I promise). Snoop now has a collar, for some reason I am working around the nose, almost like a clock! I do develop little problem areas with some portraits and then I leave an area I feel a little frightened of until some other time, when it's completely out of order to work this way! Still, at some point Snoop will get a nose. It was a very hot and sticky weather at work today, too hot to be hacking bark from trees, still that is what we are paid for and I was quite glad to have a reason to sit quietly for a couple of hours when I got home. Today was also a little perilous, we had a report of someone being chased by a wild boar and that they had been spotted very close to the area where we were working today. Not good for the faint hearted!

Just a few pics from the garden, I have no idea what this plant is, this year is the first time it has flowered. I have some vague recollection it does only flower every so many years but that's about it, answers on a postcard please!

A pretty little lilac flower (again my lack of gardening knowledge is terrible)

And for anyone catching up with the latest news on Pickle, he has returned to his bossy little self, squeaking loudly and hanging from his cage for fresh veg so things are getting back to normal.

Again, I've lost my blog list, don't forget, if you were on it or would like to be on it, just let me (a reciprical link is appreciated)

Hope you are all enjoying the sunshine!

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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