Lovely Lily

Today I can finally unveil a portrait that I finished a while ago of a cute little Jack Russell Terrier with magnificent "uppy" ears, the portrait is a 12"x 16" oil painting on canvas and has remained under wraps for a while as it was commissioned as a surprise birthday gift.

I have just had news that the recipient absolutely loves it (in spite of shedding a few tears) so I am a happy bunny :-)

"Curiosity"

Finished!

Curiosity progress

After a whole day working on this (on and off) I think I have made good progress and after a small hiccup (repositioning the left eye) I am happy to set this one aside till tomorrow.

Curiosity

I am currently suffering from "Surprise pressie" portraits, which means that although am busy painting the results have to stay under wraps until the surprise is no longer, hence a very frustrating and boring blog!

I've also had a touch of artist's block for a couple of weeks now which is something I hate to admit but it does sometimes get to me, a lovely dog walk this morning seems to have given me a jolt, and provided the inspiration to break the spell :-)

I came home eager to get to work on a painting of a curious cow that was staring at me and the dogs in the early morning sun, the colours in the scene were so wonderful that I was eager to get stuck in with my pastels.

I selected a sheet of Claire Fontaine pastelmat (which I have never used before) and got the shock of my life from the surface adhesion! I want to have a very diffuse/muted background on this painting and was keen to get down and dirty with my smudging BUT it seems that once on this paper the pastel just stays put and smudging is highly unlikely!

Not to be defeated I have changed my tack and am slowly working around the problem by trial and error with some success I need to take a break to rest my eyes but here he is so far .............

Back to the grindstone!

Well now that I'm back on form I am starting to recieve Christmas commissions so there will be a lack of work to show as I am terrified of spoiling the surprise for my clients (I'm sure no -one ever finds their way here............ but it would be sods law if I chanced it).
I will try to post other artwork for those of you that just like to look at the pictures (like myself)
One of my first new commissions is to be a large watercolour of two cute kittens, so I am excited about that one.......... it will be a challenge to attempt a feline subject for a change, as it's been a while since I used watercolour I will need to get some practice in before I start on that one.
I have joined the Flickr photographic website and have enjoyed sharing some of my unseen photographs I love photography and try to get out with my camera every at opportunity with varying degrees of luck so if anyone wants to have a peek my page is here http://www.flickr.com/photos/kay_prior/

OH this week has been an uphill struggle for me....I have been battling against a monster migraine and the drugs don't help as they turn me into a space cadet :-) all I can do is sleep so artwork has been neglected!

However since I am determined to fight back I have worked on a simple sample today, this fella was seen out and about and I got permission to photograph him from his owner

Somehow (don't ask how I'm really NOT with it today) I managed to delete the photograph halfway through the process so have had to finish from memory (not good)

Anyway my immediate thoughts are that it's worked out ok............. not my best but ok, I suspect that when I finally shift this migraine I will look at it again and be mortified!

Oh well I feel less guilty for at least having made an effort today so now its back to the darkened room for a few hours.

Llama

Have finished a commissioned oil painting which has to be kept under wraps for a while so here is todays Llama portrait almost finished I am gradually adding these characters to a series which I hope to have printed as greetings cards sometime~ there are four more amusing faces in the pipeline

Wonderful wildlife

I have been out and about this weekend with my camera and have seen a Mink, 2 Kestrels, a Barn Owl and a Marsh Harrier as if all that wasn't enough to make my day I managed to get my best ever Barn Owl shots while she was hunting~ I am a happy girl :-)

Finally finished "Al Packer" and have started work on a Llama also in pastel as I'm thinking of doing a series and printing them as greetings cards ~ they have such comical expressions which I hope will appeal to lots of people

Sad news

While my oil paintings are set aside to dry today I have been working on my pastel alpaca portrait.............. out of the blue I had a phone call from a friend to say that she has finally had to have her lovely Border collie "Daisy" PTS ~ Daisy was an amazing dog who was in her 19th year! she had been blind and partially deaf for the last two years but in otherwise fine health and great spirits, I had the great pleasure of looking after her for a week or so last year while my friend was abroad and was impressed with her get up and go for a dog so old!
I painted this pastel portrait of her as she slept one afternoon and todays sad news prompted me to post it here...............sleep tight Daisy dog ~ run free with my old girl Bramble x

Slow progress

Now that hubby has gone back to work it was time to dust off the paints and get to work, I have almost completed an oil painting of a Jack Russell Terrier which I can't show on the net as it is a surprise for my clients wife's birthday. However I had a couple of hours to spare so as I was in the groove with oils I continued to work on Cara the Irish Setter who is starting to come to life now, I am fairly happy with her so far and just have a couple of hours of work left to complete her by adding some texture to her fur.

Irish Setter

The last week has been a little erratic for me as far as work is concerned, my husband has been home all week and we have been out and about leaving me little time to paint.
I have been working on several paintings at once some of which are surprise presents so have to remain under wraps for the time being.

My oil painting of Misty the border collie has now been finished, framed and delivered to her owner so her place on my oil painting list has been taken by a memorial portrait of Cara a beautiful Irish Setter, the only ref photo is a very old, very small print with little in the way of detail so I am up against it this time however this is a breed very familiar to me so I am confident it will all fall into place.





The initial stages of my oil paintings are always shockingly ugly and I am loathe to reveal them but hopefully you will see an improvement as I progress.





As this is not a commissioned peice I have not done any groundwork I have simply worked freehand direct onto the canvas with thin paint to give a basis on which to rework and build each area untill I feel happy with it, on a commissioned portrait I would normally spend a lot of time drawing and measuring to achieve an accurate foundation before beginning to paint



Next I block in some tone to create a more structured image, at this point there are several areas that I know are out of kilter and will need some careful adjustment but at this point I needed to inject some life and expression into her eyes as a motivator for me to carry on.

Now that I have some life in her eyes I needed to sort out her muzzle area as there is little detail in the ref to help me it is mainly trial and error, I have also darkened the background and moved her left ear slightly which has balanced the portrait to a point where I am starting to see some progress, this now needs to be left to dry for a few days and I will return to finish Al Packer and a Jack Russell oil that has been drying.

Day off

Hubby and I treated ourselves to a day off today and headed for the Ashdown forest to walk with Llama's, Martin was paired up with Toby and I walked with Nicholas, we had a lovely walk through the Ashdown forest with our two large and very handsome charges who behaved themselves impeccably.

Spent some time taking photos of the Llamas and Alpacas before having lunch and heading for home~ what a lovely day :-)

Heading for meltdown!

It's strange how "viral" the internet can be, my website has experienced a sudden deluge of entries to my "win a pet portrait" competition, I can only imagine this is due to word of mouth amongst the pet owning public as I have done zilch to promote it outside my site? that said, I am flabbergasted, grateful and inspired by the sheer number of folk who would like a painting by me enough to submit an entry, if these were all paying clients I'm sure I would be gainfully employed from now until I retired ;-)
Oh well massive thanks to all entrants for boosting my morale
I am currently mulling over the possibilty of a couple of extra "runner up" prizes which will be announced later in the year.
Meanwhile anyone passing by my website please feel free to add your vote for the best photo~ it's worth a look as there are so many gorgeous,cute and funny animals to feast your eyes on.

Back in the real world I have also been having a creative splurge and I currently have 10 paintings on the go at various stages of drying and progress! as a result of all this activity my studio (spare bedroom) has become something of a tip so I really must create a gap in this current burst of creativity to have a housekeeping day :-( as they say "all good things....................

Al Packer

Today I have been working on my surprise birthday commissions so no piccy's to divulge just yet~ however to add some variety I have been delving into that folder again and found myself a wonderful Alpaca to paint using pastels he has fantastic wool which will take an age to finish! this is where I am with "Al" so far...............................

Finished

Today I found myself getting to the "fiddling" stage with this one ~ hopefully I caught myself in the nick of time and stopped myself totally ruining the piece.

I'm not sure if it has been entirely successful but it certainly made a change for me (which is indeed as good as a rest)

Tomorrow its back to work on the oil paintings

Horse for a change

Well the wet weather (sigh) has done it's utmost to dampen my spirits and all my commissioned work is in oils waiting to dry between stages ~ So I decided to try a horse in pastels for a change, I dipped into the "to do " folder and came up with this lovely girl, she gave me lots of hassle to begin with as I rushed in and got proportions all wrong!! however I worked past the "bin it" stage and think it has now turned a corner :-)



She is 23 x 30 cm on colourfix paper and not too far off finished

BDAG exhibition

No painting done yesterday as I had a day off to steward at the Battle and district Arts Group summer exhibition.

Lots of visitors streaming in to browse and four paintings sold during my morning session! (not mine unfortunately), Time will tell but I think sales will be down on last year which is to be expected in the current economic climate although the works sold have been varied in price range so I still believe it's all down to a random meeting of purchaser and painting.

The day went by in a flash chatting to members and visitors and admiring some fantastic work by the other artists there ~ well worth a visit if you are in the area of Battle High Street, it's well signed and open until 5pm Saturday.

During my stint I was approached twice by purchasers dissapointed that the painting they wanted had already sold~ there really is no telling what will sell and what won't ~guess I got it all wrong with the paintings I chose to exhibit this year, nevermind ~theres always next time.

Back to work today adding the finishing touches to "Misty"and continuing to work on two "surprise" birthday commissions which I have to keep under wraps until the end of September.

Misty & Flint

I am currently working on several "surprise" birthday portraits so can not post them anywhere for a while~ however while my four paintings are exhibited at Battle this week I have some free time to spend on my current commission, an oil painting of "Misty". Her owner came to see the work so far and is happy with it so onwards and upwards. I have done the bulk of the work and now have fine details of her fur to complete ~ here she is so far(left), alongside her sister Rusty's portrait which I painted for the same client a couple of years ago

In between commissions I have indulged myself with some work on portraits for my own amusement which will be added to my "samples" folder and I am especially happy with this pastel portrait of "Flint" a handsome German Wirehaired Pointer which I painted on A3 Ingres paper, here is the finished painting of him

Christmas!!

Ho Ho Ho~ Christmas is coming (I kid ye not) sorry folks but this IS the time of year to think about getting in the chimney sweep (note to self). Likewise if you are thinking about ordering a pet portrait painting for someone special Now is the time to make those enquiries before everyone else beats you to it!
All of us portrait artists struggle to cope with the deluge of orders at Christmas and hate to disappoint so don't leave it too late to place your order ~