Eric and more!

On with the next projects. At the moment on my list I have three to do. 2 of which I can show you, The third I will keep secret until the client has given the portrait as a present for her husbands birthday!

The other 2 are:
a) Eric. An exmoor pony who is an absolute poppet. I went out to meet Eric in the New Forest area and took lots of photos. So far I have started to work out the setting. The background needed to be outside as the owners favourite photo was Eric with the wind blowing his vast mane! He is a very pretty pony, typical of the exmoor and will be a pleasure to paint.

Also, b) A donkey called Bubba, who resides at the Devon Donkey Sanctuary. The portrait will be completed and sent to the sanctuary where they will use it for fundraising.

Finally finished

Well its finally finished and approved.! The present was given and gladly I can say was greatly received. This was for a lady who has owned horses all her life and the ones chosen for the portrait were her favourites.

Large commission..cont

Ok, Time to blog! Half term and sickness bug had put a stop to painting for a couple of days but we are back on track and steaming towards the home straight! This one is very nearly complete now so this piccy is where its at this eve. I have gone through each one doing underpaintings and loose details, now working my way back the other way (no particular reason) tightening them all up, adding fine detail and blending colours, light and shading. So 2 more to go. Hopefully finish Tues and have Wednesday for fiddling!

I am loving all the nitty gritty tack details and the colour blending :-)
Joined together with the looseness and course brushstrokes of the background.
The background is going to have to be re worked once the horses are complete. I have patched it up in places due to slight changes in the horses as I have progressed. The basic idea will be the same, working with sagey greens, middle grey, raw umber, buff titanium and titanium white.

Large commission..cont

Ok ! onwards and upwards. have been really cracking on with this one this week as its half term next week so will have ltd time to work. I will post the photos as i have completed work daily to show you on average how much i do in a day. Sometimes more, sometimes less.
Thats the thing with painting, as most artist will tell you, sometimes you cant get down to paint quick enough and sometimes I have to really crowbar my bottom off the seat and into the studio! :D
This weeks work has also been interupted by daughter no 2 being off sick yesterday with a sickness bug! probably caught at her birthday party or the germ pool of school.

Anyway I degress, here are the pictures from the last few days! comments very welcome :P

Large commission

Ok. On with the commissions. :D I have started a large commission now, Its of 4 horses. Two of them have unfortunately passed away so we are really ltd with photos of those two. I have managed to get some more photos sent of the other 2 and I am working from numerous photos to get this portrait complete.
One major issue when doing a large portrait is getting the sizes correct. None of the horses are photographed together so it is vital to get as much information as to the proportions etc. Who is the biggest? It might sound simple, but to get them all looking correct from numerous photos requires a lot of study and placing.

To ensure I had got this one correct, once each horse was sketched out, i copied the sketches and made templates up to the correct sizing and placed them on canvas. This is the stage you can see here in the the photo. Once these were all placed and the client had approved it, I could then draw them out onto the canvas for real. I have now done this and also put in the back ground. I will post an update late this week to show how this one is progressing. I have a tight deadline on this , so things should move along quite swiftly. Come back soon to see how its going :)

New Year New Ideas!

Well, the first commission of the new year is completed and sent off following approval! He's Henry! shown here, a much loved cat. The portrait was purchased for the gentlemans wife as a surprise present!
I love being part of so many surprises and gifts. I suppose thats one of the lovely parts of my job. I am lucky to generally see people when they are excited about producing the portrait as a gift or generally to celebrate their much loved pet.

Sometimes the portraits are completed of a lost loved one. This is a lovely way to show how much the pet /horse meant to you and lets you have a part of them with you to ponder at for years after their departure. Photographs can sometimes be a problem at this time as you obviously have only to work with what was taken in the past. Usually however, using a selection of photographs, I can depict your horse or pet and still get an accurate likeness and bring out their much loved character.

This year, I am striving to be more organised, stricter with my work routines and not neglet my marketing or online prescense! So blogging here should be weekly, my website will updated monthly ( at least) :) and ongoing exhibitions will as always have my newest and most up to date works shown. I am determined to work hard again this year and get accepted again for the Mall Galleries Society of Equestrian Artists annual exhibition. I have one piece I am working on for that so I will keep you posted.

Happy New Year!

Well!! Happy New Year to everyone!

Its been a while since I blogged and I have made a diary note for this year to blog once a week ! I will be updating on all the new works in progress as usual and post anything else interesting thats going on too.

All the Christmas commissions got off in time and all happy with their portraits. I will put a few pics here so you can see the ones I couldnt post before as not to spoil the surprises.

My list for the new year is already creeping up and so I must crack on with those this week. In the meantime also look after my 2 children, dog, puppy, horse etc etc!! the list is endless. Just very glad the children are both now at full time school so can get more work done.

The first commission of the year is a cat "Henry" so I will post that as soon as he is finished! Then coming up are 2 large horse portraits, one pony, 3 charity portraits to organise. One for WAVE105, the winner wants her horse done, One for Spinal Research "Saddle Up" national raffle , and one for the local school where I will be painting the winning child on canvas !!

So all busy busy! anyway here are some of the Christmas portraits i can now show you... be back next week for the next update!!