Cat Portraits, Charlie

Well things have been very slow going with the cat this week, sorry, I've become caught up in the website yet again. And sorry about the flash yet again too! As you all know from my last post I revamped the site and uploaded it, however I am now lost in cyberspace and having a very heated ongoing email conversation with my host and after they have kindly taken my money for a couple of years, I'm very disappointed in their speed of response let alone help in fixing things. I am beginning to lose my patience (I have very little) and have been looking for a new host who will be much more helpful in times of future disaster!

Also, after another violent snow flurry, we were able to get outside in the garden today. On Friday I popped into the village and within 20 minutes the snow had covered the road and cars were pulling up on pavements, it was bizarre, I've never seen it settle and cover so quickly, then no more snowfall! Unfortunately it froze overnight and yesterday was bitter cold and icy so the bunnies and guinea pigs stayed inside. Today was a different matter though and we all went out to play, including Willow above who as always...just wants to play football!!!

This is one of our golden appenzellar cocks we bred last year. These are funny breed and come in a silver version too. They are quite nosey and cheeky but will follow you all around the garden. Each of the golden cocks has been nick-named Elvis due to the 'hair quiff' and at the moment we have 3 of them, I never know which is which so I just call them all the same....Elvis! Good job they don't get offended!

And introducing the latest project, this is a dexta and Ronnie has been collecting spare parts for it from far and wide, spot his helpful hen trotting under the back of the tractor, you can just see her tail feathers. She loves working in the shed with him and has taken to pecking Gypsy on the tail when they come into contact!

I can also tell something is afoot, Ronnie has been reorganising his tractor shed which currently should house 4 tractors, 2 landrovers and 2 morris minors however, all of the tractors are out, plus the land rovers have been moved to leave additional space, one morris is now outside and tools have been tidied away so I guess we are awaiting delivery of some other vehicle! Oh well, we are more like Steptoes back yard now than a country cottage!!!

I'm off to set up my display tomorrow so I will take some photos to blog aswell. Then you will see I do actually manage to do some art every now and then!

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. The competition has closed for this year but there will be a new one in 2010. Join in the fun and vote for this year's winner by following the links here.

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!

Cat Portraits, Charlie

Just to prove I had been working on this cat portrait, I used a black background behind the drafting film for contrast tto show the chest area but this will not remain in place once the cat portrait is complete.

And here is Dobbin the Robin, waiting patiently by our truck at breaktime for any spare morsels of food.
Our road was horrendous this morning, we had to dig our drive out very early this morning just to get the truck up onto the track then we ran the gauntlet onto the main road, luckily things are starting to thaw now but looking ahead we are due 3 more snow storms next week but as the weather reports can't even predict the weather an hour in the future, I'm thinking this may not come to pass as it's becoming a bit patience sapping!
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. The competition has closed for this year but there will be a new one in 2010. Join in the fun and vote for this year's winner by following the links here.

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!

Cat Portraits, Charlie

copyright Karie-Ann Cooper 2010

Meet Charlie. Charlie is 13 or 14 and is now relaxing in her later years. She used to be a prolific hunter but is now more often than not, found in one of 3 places; the window sill where she can gaze outside and also keep her eye on her canine companions; her owner's bed where she likes to curl up at night keeping her mum's feet warm on these cold winter nights and finally on the wooden rack shown in the reference image. From here she can watch over her garden but also quickly make an entrance into the house (an old cider mill) when she feels a chill or a catnap brewing!

Well the weather was half right, half wrong, the snow storm started 6 hours early and lasted for 18 hours instead of just overnight. We are now coated yet again in a thick white blanket and depending on which weather report you chose, we are either freezing and creating more ice-rink roads for tomorrow or melting! I think the reporters are just trying to cover all bases and then they can't be accused of getting things wrong!
We spent most of the morning uncovering the electric fencing again and I also cleaned out all of my bunnies and guinea pigs, no doubt they are going stir crazy as the lawn is under about 8 inches of snow and I think my guinea pigs would sink below the surface. As a bit of respite for them they were each allowed a run around in the bottom of the shed (the rabbits) and the guinea pigs came up to the house to watch television from the comfort of the sofa. I daren't let them run around the floor as they aren't used to electric cables and could take a little nibble of one!
And so to relieve your boredom....no snow pics today, instead Sooty and Sweep are putting in an appearance and saying hello!

Sooty

Sweep

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. The competition has closed for this year but there will be a new one in 2010. Join in the fun and vote for this year's winner by following the links here.

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!

Cat Portrait, Elle

I've now finished Elle, and have found a mount which compliments the portrait very well so she should be soon in the post in time for the lucky birthday recipient. As you can see from the two images above, the floor area in front of Elle looks very different in the later update. I achieved this by first gently smoothing the graphite with a cotton wool bud to get the graphite into the tooth of the paper, this gives a move even finish, then I used my finger tips to blend all the graphite together to even up the shadings so there were no hard edges and finally I removed excess graphite with blu-tack to give the impression of the floor fading into the foreground.

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

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!

Cat Portrait, Elle

I've got back to Elle, I only managed a little bit last night before puppy training with Willow (who is absolutely fine after her rat poison episode) but due to the poor wet and windy weather now I'll be sat cosying up to the fire continuing with her portrait and starting on Patch's aswell.

And this is a little video from work, we are working in the Bark Rack area which is on the border with Wales and this place is a goldmine for deer. This group (and I was lucky to catch them) crossed in front of the truck twice before I got my camera ready. There were about 20 or more in the first group and then I think we saw another 3 or 4 groups, mainly does but I did see a lovely stag and have another video of him to post at another time. Look how fast they travel! The track is like an italian mountain road, chicanes and hairpin bends right down to the bottom and I think it must be over a mile down from the main road so the deer are on the whole very undisturbed by anything.

And also a little prezzie from my friend Linzi (she's just got a blog so please visit, it does make me chuckle) and this was for a portrait of her two stunning labs, Liam and Clyde, thanks Linzi!!!!

And so to the I love your blog award...

And I nominate the following blogs

1. Linzi's Patch as it really does have me in fits, and I think it's pretty

2. Oregon Art Guy, Bill's little anecdotes are so cheeky!

3. Emily Roe, I love her portraits

4. Musings from behind the easel because I want all the things on here
4. Animal and Pet Portraits by Collette Theriault because I love her wildlife art.

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

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!

Cat Portrait, Elle

A very bad piccy I'm afraid due to my camera situation, I've managed to charge up the kodak camera but it lasts about three shots so I don't even get time to turn off the flash!  I had hoped to have gotten a bit further with this but managed to catch a sickness bug including a bad headache so I couldn't look at the portrait until this evening.

I managed to get some fresh air today though, it was quite a nice day plus fresh air does me the world of good. I suffer terribly with travel sickness, by the time I get to the place we are working at for my day job, I'm sometimes a pale shade of green, as we travel there I find I cannot talk and need the window down but as soon as I get a good lung full of fresh air I feel so much better and it was the same case today, my headache was better after a while being outside. During the course of my rehabilitation I took some pics (only a few before those batteries went flat)

Of course the now ever popular Willow picture, she is turning out to be quite a poser now, those ears are little big though, I think they are satellite dishes!

And the action shot, Zac has finally relented and made friends with Willow, although he is a little reserved and not as mad as he is with Gypsy but as soon as rough and tumbles start he does join in.

And the tractor gets a lick of paint, Ronnie is hard at work restoring his latest toy!

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

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!

Cat Portrait, Elle

A lot has happened to Elle since you last saw her, I am gradually working my way down her body now, it takes lots and lots of little short strokes to produce fur and this has been no quick job. I love Elle's paw out, she looks as though she wants to tap you on the hand. I expect a few seconds after her photo was taken she fell asleep dreaming of mice.
*****
And so to the day job....

This is where we have been working, we have been around this area marking oak since the snow, it looked very different today in all the sunshine, I was actually in my t-shirt where it was quite warm, last week I had on thermal socks trying to keep them from going numb in the snow!

And this is Willow heading back to the truck for a well earned sleep. She was very good today until she was put in to rest, she only works part-time at the moment as she is still a puppy so has to have a sleep, instead she howled and yapped until she was let out. She starts proper puppy training tonight so I'll let you know how she gets on when I next update my blog.

Please also have a look at my picture of the day, this was Ronnie's Christmas present, a fordson tractor, mine was Willow, I expect most other people got mobile phones, necklaces, rings, all the normal things, not us!

Plus I received another blog award

which is wonderful, from the very talented Debbie Flood and please take the time to visit her blog, I love the horse and carriage watercolour painting she has on it, I am supposed to list 7 things I like but I have already done that and I have to stand by my choices plus I have to pass on this award to 7 peoples blogs I like, I've already done that too, however there were a few more I wanted to add to my list so I'm sort of cheating I suppose and want to pass the award to

Sheila Tajima

Bill

and Kathleen Coy

I only added three so I don't feel too much as though I've abused the chance of adding extra blogs I like/love to my list!!!! Take 5 minutes to visit these blogs and you'll see why I enjoy them so much.

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

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!

Cat Portrait, Elle

And work has started on the beautiful Elle, pronounced Ellie. This is to be a full body portrait of Elle, she's a very pretty cat I think. I'm not going to update the current work photo as I will be dotting around all over the place trying to calm my nerves over short deadlines so look at the future work slideshow to see Elle's reference image. I've also not updated my picture of the day image since the snow so I'm off out to play now as it's such a nice day to see if I can get some pics for you to look at and will update it later. It's all go!!!

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

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!

Framing Portraits from Photos

Kay and the Koala are now framed as this is a collected portrait...



...And Dibble and Fifi have been put into a double mount to be posted ready for Christmas.
Job done.



Now I have to get back to the artwork, I have still a few which I have not even started yet, usually I draw things out a little ahead of myself when I get 5 minutes spare and when I need a break from the current portrait I am working on, unfortunately I'm yet again behind so this weekend is going to be a hard slog to get it back on track, the problem is I now have two rolls of wire to put into my rabbit pens to do them up and I should also be doing that otherwise new recruit Rex the rabbit will be out from underneath the wire, he's a fanatical digger and yearns to escape.

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!

Cat Portrait from Photo, Dibble and Fifi

Fifi now has legs!!! I'm putting this portrait away for a few days as all that needs to be done is the background, the client would like the carpet as in Dibble's image at the top of the reference photo so I'm leaving it to have a break and to start another portrait. It's sometimes very helpful to leave a portrait and then return as you see bits and pieces that need touching up and altering to ensure it is perfect. To see how I reached this stage view the previous update here

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!

Cat Portrait from photo, Dibble and Fifi

Fifi now has almost got back legs at this stage!!! I love this cat's eyes, they are like gold. See here for previous updates.For a change we had a bit of sunshine in the garden after work so I was able to take a few photos of the birds out and about in the garden. This is our muscovy drake rushing off to one of his girlfriends who has been penned up with her five ducklings, he was on a mission
And here are the toulouse dewlap in their newly fenced pen. We bought a heap of electric fencing for them to stay out all day, spot the infiltrator if you can, Sid got in and now refuses to be parted from his pals. The new goose is the one nearest the fence facing left and the smallest goose at the back is called Baby, she was bred last year but hasn't grown very much, we think she's a bit of a runt.

And the autumn colours are now really showing on the trees behind the house.

Cat Portrait from Photo, Dibble and Fifi

Further work has been done on Fifi. Fifi is not completely black and has quite a lot of blue in her fur, unlike Dibble who has just about every colour covered. See previous progress here

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!

Cat Portrait from Photo

Work is now beginning on Officer Dibble and Fifi, these two are to be full bodied and on one large portrait. Just this small part has taken 3 1/2 hours already. I always mean to log how long a portrait takes and then forget so hopefully for this one I'll be a bit more reliable!!! I still have to add a few more touches to Dolly and Peggy but the light under a day light bulb is not the best for graphite as it reflects so I'll wait until the day light is better and get on with that today. This portrait is going to be a lot of hard work, Dibble, to the untrained eye looks like a black furry cat, however I think he has every colour of the rainbow in his fur, so far I've added lilac, loganberry, a few greys, browns, fawn, cream and a bit of blue....but absolutely no black!!! He really is furry and I bet he stays nice and warm no matter how cold the weather is. Doesn't he look a laid back fellow!!!I have now drawn in Fifi as well, I couldn't resist Fifi's eyes and had to colour them in even though I am nowhere near beginning the second cat. I have put in lilac and pale grey undercolours on Dibble and all the pencil strokes are in the direction of his fur (all over the place!!) and I am now adding further layers of collour working down his tummy.I've added a couple more layers of the grey and lilac, then added loganberry, brown, cream, blue and dark grey to get to this stage. I am trying to work the entire area with the basic colours to go back to 'top up' areas but I keep noticing bits I need to add this and that to so I'm going around in circles a bit. It seems to have taken ages to get here as there are so many colours in Dibble's coat. It seems as though I've added twenty thousand layers to get to this stage. I now plan to start work on Fifi, the lower cat, and then I will go back to Dibble to add colour where I feel it is needed. Thankfully Fifi is a lot smoother and hopefully it will not be quite as complicated to show the fur going in the right direction.This photo was taken yet again under a daylight bulb so does not look its best but I wanted to show how work is progressing on Fifi. This is about 4 layers of colour on the darkest areas and I'm sure I'll be adding more as time goes by.

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!