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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Horse Portrait from Photo

Well I've had some feedback about Ollie's portrait and it is good news, it seems Ollie's owner was very pleased with her surprise birthday gift so that's a great relief!!! I'm currently hoping to have a page with my pet portraits displayed on a popular dog website so hopefully it will prove popular for both myself and the dog website, fingers crossed, it's still in the very early stages so far but it sounds quite promising plus I'm trying to figure out how I want my background to look on the tiger portrait for the pet portrait competition but I cannot seem to get it quite right, I know what I want but cannot get it down on paper, plus I have a few commissions building up to get on with now so I'm a bit of a busy bee at the moment, my day job does get in the way a bit you know!!! Talking of the day job I passed my assessment for brushcutting, clearing saws and strimming, I sound professional now (it's not true at all) so I should be able to do a good job - who are they kidding!!! And most importantly of all, I saved one of my warren chickens from certain death yesterday, I heard a commotion in the garden so ran outside to find a buzzard about 3 foot from the back door and I am not exaggerating in anyway, sat on a chicken trying to rips it's wings apart, I grabbed the chicken just as the buzzard took off, I would not believe they were so big without seeing one with it's wings out, and how cheeky was it!!! My chicken had a fuss and is now in chicken hospital until her wing gets better, although I'm not sure if she'll ever flap her right wing properly again. Oh what fun country life is!!!

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!

Horse pet portrait from Photo

A bit of a rush commission, meet Ollie, a lovely looking horse with unusual colouring which proved a bit of a challenge. Due to it being a surprise I was unable to post any work in progress until Ollie's owner had received the portrait.

I began by drawing in the basic outline of Ollie, as this is only my second horse commission I am still a little unsure of a horse's anatomy so wanted to make sure all the muscles etc were in the correct place. At this point I used four different colours to start to get the correct colouring and depth, I had not put in high and low lights so there were to be several more layers added later.

Below you can see I moved across to Ollie's cheek, I wanted to make sure I was getting the shape of his head correct. I added a few more layers here to the original four colours, I added a darker brown, some brown black to create more shadows plus I burnished a little to start to show up the sheen on his fur. Still a long way to go at this point though.
Below I started to add a little of the black background, this made a major difference to the look of the portrait as it made Ollie's colours stand out much more, it created a really good contrast. I also worked on Ollie's ears which were very pricked and apparently a good indicator of his personality. A very alert horse by all accounts.

Unfortunately as this was such a rush job I had to take the final pictures at night time under lights, as you can see it makes a massive difference to the colours and shine of the portrait. I am reluctant to alter the colours with a photo shop type programme though as I'm not really sure how to do it for one but you can see the true colours of the portrait from the updates above. Ollie's portrait was collected very early in the morning so due to Autumn beginning to creep around the corner the light was not suitable in the morning to take a better shot anyway.

Anyway Ollie has now gone off to his owner for her birthday, back to the drawing board.

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!

Horse Portrait update

Roli's portrait is now complete, I'm really happy with the finished work. It was a bit of a slog working on the neck area, there were muscles and a sheen to deal with which was quite time consuming, however I think it was all worth the effort.

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!

Horse Portrait Update

A few more pics of the horse portrait, things are going great guns with this one as you can see. I've completed the background with black pastel and charcoal and then fixed it with spray. All that is left to do is the neck (all I say, it's probably the same amount of work again due to the muscles, shine and tone of Roli's neck)

Also I have been busy with the sprocker and child portrait in graphite pencils, so far I have the main of the child down but I will need to revisit for more shading and blending at a later stage.

All in all a very busy evening and quite productive. Sometimes it's a shame I have to go to my day job!!! Talking of which we were marking douglas fir trees on the same steep bank as yesterday but as it was reasonably dry today I managed to remain upright, I think I need ropes to tie myself to the trees to hoist myself up and lower myself down like abseiling!!! It really makes my legs ache so I presume it must be quite good exercise, a little compensation I suppose. Luckily there is a small cafe near Hopewell Colliery, a visitor centre where tourists can visit an underground mine and see how it worked, see the pics below of the old mine workings.

Plus little Smudge was on guard at the door, isn't he lovely. His owners are on holiday and have left him with a dog sitter who takes him to work every day, apparantly he's become a bit of a celebrity and greets all the tourists and locals who visit the mine. I really wanted to kidnap him.

A bit different to my terrier. look at the mess she gets into, all she does is dig and tug at roots, luckily this is the dog sofa but nevertheless she is a bit of a dirty girl!!!

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 Portraits from Photos Horse Portrait

A bit of a mixed bag today, I've got on well with the horse portrait from photo with the image from http://www.bigtimemedia.co.uk/

And I have to say I'm pleased with the progress so far. I am also really pleased to be able to use an image of a spaniel taken by Greg Knight of http://www.ruralshots.com/ as another example of a pencil pet portrait from a photo.

...And the bad news is... I damaged the portrait of Mickey the springer spaniel. I was within a hair's breadth of completing him aswell, isn't it always the way. I had drawn Mickey's tail incorrectly and erased it a little too harshly damaging the surface of the portrait. I have tried to rework the area to no avail but luckily Terry and Lorraine, Mickey's owners, are being very patient in allowing me to start over again. Oh dear, what a disaster, I was more than a little upset, so much so I nearly had a cigarette after giving up three years ago!!!

And finally I have started work on the sprocker and child so I will update this as soon as possible.

Back to the Forestry work, today we worked like soldiers on a steep bank (felt like a mountain) in the pouring rain and by a busy main road, who says trees are all glamour. I wore my waterproofs which are made of rubber looking like an alien from Doctor Who and fell over no less than a dozen times, I gave up counting at this point as it became a bit embarrassing!!!

I was about half way up the bank when this photo was taken, apparantly it's good exercise and it really does fell like it now, I ache all over!!!

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!

First Horse Portrait on Website

Thanks to John Tyrell from http://www.bigtimemedia.co.uk/ for letting me use his image above for the first work in progress horse portrait I shall be doing for my website. The horse is called Roli, and a lovely looking horse he is. I'm so pleased to be able to use this image so come back to see work on his portrait as it happens.

Thanks John.

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!