Horse portraits, Badger

A couple of updates on the first of my horse portraits, this one featuring Badger. I've managed to work down the face and across the forehead, still along way to go though so back to it!!!!

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Horse Portraits, Badger

Just on case anyone had thought I'd given up with my blog, I am still here! I've finished Arthur and Macey as far as I can but until I get a mount for them I'm not sure how far I need to continue the grass around their feet so I will update them as soon as possible. In the meantime, the next of my pet portraits and the first of three horse portraits I have to do is the lovely Badger, he is a small pony and much loved by his owner. Badger is quite a calm little fellow and just the right sort of pony for a little girl to own. This has taken about 5 hours so far and is on drafting film, so lots and lots of tiny tiny pencil strokes for the fur effect. I'm off to a dog show this weekend and want to be able to take Arthur and Macey completed with me as well as this one either on the drawing board or completed so I'd best get on!!!
As for Cyril.....

....he has now started to grow fur, a good sign I think, he's very very greedy and gets a bit erratic when it's feeding time and scrambles all over the place looking for the pipette, I'm usually covered in his dinner and he does get a bit sticky, it's become a bit of a routine now that he has to be wiped all over with baby wipes to clean him up, by that time he's had so much milk he's asleep so doesn't take any notice! He's such a messy little thing he has a change of water bottle covers and woolly hats to sleep in but that didn't stop him escaping his basket over night and my having to empty the entire contents of the airing cupboard to find him curled up in a tea towel. He's now in a cane wash basket to prevent any further incidents! I've also found a very local lady who worked for a wildlife rescue charity but now does it from home, so I'll be ringing her for advice because I think Cyril's eyes will open before long and no doubt choas will ensue at that point!

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.

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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.

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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.

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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

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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

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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.

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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

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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

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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!