Great Dane Portrait

Hello all, I unfortunately can't show you my current Christmas commission as it's a surprise, but I can show you the outline of the large coloured pencil Great Dane drawing i'm doing. The customer is happy to wait until after Christmas if required, so it may be a while before any more gets done, but I just couldn't resist getting started. It's getting a bit busier now with Christmas orders, I have 4 so far, so a bit of room for 1 or 2 more, plus my Great Dane portrait and the Lurcher portrait that the customer is also willing to wait for until after Christmas. Wow, a waiting list of 6 portraits, doesn't sound much to those who are booked up for Christmas in September, but it's a really good amount for me! Anyway, here is the Great Dane portrait:

Out of the Sandbox!!

Hooray, I am sooo excited my website has finally come out of the Google sandbox and appears in the listings for the search term 'pet portraits'. I'm on page #2. I've only just fiund out after looking on a SEO forum and several people were saying their sites came out of the sandbox on 24th Novemebr, so I thought i'd check and there it was. Woohoo!!

Less than a month 'till Christmas!

The Christmas lights were switched on in Wick on Saturday, they look very nice, particulalry a large net of white lights suspended in the air from the Christmas tree to the corners of Wetherspoons. They look like a net of stars. Less than a month to go now and 4 drawings to be finished in time. I have one that is a surprise to do, 2 12" x 16" Old English Sheepdog portraits and the large Great Dane drawing. I have also been emailed the photographs for the portrait that was sold in the auction on the Sighthounds online website. She is a gorgeous Lurcher, the customer is deciding whether to upgrade to a coloured pencil drawing or not. I've still got a few spaces though, and a Gift Voucher is always a good option if time is short.

Big paper for a big dog!

Back in August I donated a gift voucher for the Best in Show prize at a companion dog show held in aid of Greyhound Rescue, the winner has just sent me her photographs. The portrait is of a Great Dane and the customer has ordered a 16" x 20" coloured pencil drawing with a full background, as an uprade of her gift voucher. This is the largest portrait I have ever been commissioned to do, but I am really excited about it, and looking forward to working on it. I have drawn the outline today, and positioned everything, I couldn't take a picture, by the time i'd finished it was dark, but hopefully I will get one tommorow.

Latest Pet Portrait

I have just finished my most recent Pet Portrait of a Corgi cross called Horace. It has been quite a challenge as the photograph was taken on a very bright day and there were parts that I wasn't sure if it was white fur or highlight. I have sent the customer an email of the finished piece, so hopefully will hear soon if she's pleased. Here it is:

Shopaholic!

Today was the first day of opening for the pet superstore i work at. I was very bad and succumbed to the temptation and bought 2 baby lop ear bunnies, one is all different colour greys and white all smudged together and the other has a brown patch on white on his back, brown ears and brown nose. I will take some photos and post them. I have called them Will & Jack as in 'Pirates of the Caribean'.

I also bought some pencils off of ebay, my fiance always laughs at me getting excited over pencil! They are Derwent Coloursoft pencils which are soft creamy pencils. I currently have derwent Studio pencils which I find too hard, so I use watercolour pencils which are softer, so i'm hoping the Coloursoft ones are good. Perhaps the bunnies could be my first subjects!!

Shop now Open!

I have finally finished doing all the pages and the pictures for the shop, I still haven't added the 'buy now' buttons but they shouldn't take long to do, and I wanted to get the pages online to start the ever so slow search engine ranking and to give visitors an idea of what i've got to offer. The extra pages have now boosted the website to 84 pages - wow! I know that's tiny compared to some sites, but for a little website that seems loads. I have also updated the navigation bar slightly - to include the shop of course, and change 'gallery' to 'galleries'. This is beacause I have quite a lot of artwork on there now, so i'm going to re - arrange it into smaller chunks. Not sure how yet, but that's another job to go on the 'to-do' list.

Anyway, if you fancy shopping, follow the link for pet keyrings, magnets & cards.

Pet Keyrings & Magnets

At last I remembered to get a camera battery (and a spare!) so I could take my photographs of the keyrings and fridge magnets. I am working my way slowly through setting up all the pages for the shop, but hopefully it should all be finished by the weekend. Here are a couple of photographs of the Cavalier Spaniel magnet & keyring to give you an idea.

Corgi Cross Work in Progress

I have been working on the Corgi cross commission today, which has just started taking shape. Quite often with my Pet Portraits I find i'm not sure if they're going to be ok when I start, then they reach a point where they start looking like they're supposed to. Today was that day for Horace!! I am planning on having him finished this week. The latest update is on the work in progress.

I also started another commission today that unfortunately I can't share with you as it's a Christmas surprise. It's just starting to get busy - as well as Horace and the one I started today I am waiting on photographs for two more, one of which is another Christmas one.

Auction for Greyhound Rescue

Do you own a Greyhound, or like Greyhounds, or just like to support dog welfare?? I have recently been asked by Sighthounds Online to donate a Pet Portrait for their Christmas Auction.

This site is dedicated to Sighthounds (which you may have guessed!!). They are a registered charity dedicated to helping sighhounds in need. One of the ways they do this is to hold online auctions, the current one is raising funds for Orchard Greyhound Sanctuary and Greyhound and Lurcher Welfare and Rescue (GLWR). They have many things for sale including books, collars, pictures, dog toys etc. If you would like to have a look follow this link: http://www.sighthoundsonline.org.uk/forums/index.php?showforum=60 I think you have to register, but that doesn't take long. The auction runs till 8pm Sunday 19th and they have 174 items to browse.

Pet Keyrings

This evening I have been making keyrings. They are clear acrylic with 24mm x 25mm inserts and so far they are available with the same five images as the greetings cards:

• Beagle
• Boxer
• Cavalier King Charles Spaniel
• Yellow Labrador
• Tabby Cat

They are going to be for sale at £2.50 each including UK postage and packaging. I am currently working on the web pages for the shop and when I get a digital camera battery I can take some photographs!! Hopefully I will be able to show you photographs at the weekend.

Pet Portraits Forum Administrator

I got myself another job today - a volantary one this time, as an administrator for the Pet Portraits forum I am a member of. The forum is here at: http://www.pet-portraitartist.com/forum/ It is quite busy with just over 200 registered users and everyone is very helpful with critiques and comments on each other's artwork and suggestions to overcome problems. It also has a reference library of dogs, horses, cats, other animals as well as backgrounds.

I have been a member since March when it was only young, and it's owner Melanie Philips said she was very busy with it, so I offered my services. It was very trusting of her to do this because as an administrator I can get into the admin areas of the forum and delete users and posts, so I am really proud she felt she could trust me and that I had the know how to use the system without wiping out the whole forum!! So my new role involves watching the forum for naughty posts, users trying to sell porn, get rich schemes, software or the like and delete these users and their posts, so keeping the foum a nice place to visit.

Dog breeds

I have just created a new blog where my old Pet Portraits blog used to be at wordpress.com which I have called Pets and Art. I am going to write about a different breed of dog, cat or horse in each post, accompanied by one or more of my drawings. I have drawn several different breeds of dog and I think this will keep me motivated to work on the non - commision stuff to keep it updated. Today I have showcased the Boxer, as I have more portraits of Boxers than any other dog, and because we have two Boxers of our own. Here is the address. http://lauraspetportraits.wordpress.com.

Bengal Cat work in progress

I have done a little more work on the graphite pencil Bengal cat, and some work on the Corgi cross commission today. Here is the latest update on the Bengal, I'm really pleased with how this is going so far.

Golden Retriever update

I have been making an attempt to catch up on some of my half finished artwork, including the Golden Retriever for the gifts range. This is especially important now that my blank keyrings and magnets have eventually arrived. Here is the the latest update of the Golden Retriever.

Newest Aceo, Basset Hound #4

Hello, I completed my fourth Basset Hound ACEO today. It's quite a contemporary pose, with the nose prominent, like the 'the dog', 'the puppy' etc style of photography. I think it's quite cool. I've added it to Ebay today, along with the Basset Puppy, and the one that didn't sell last time, so fingers crossed. Here it is, hope you like it:

Bengal cat update

I have had a busy two days training for my new job, so not a huge amount of time for artwork, especially now the clocks have gone back and it's dark at half 5! TodayI've managed to do a little of the Bengal cat I started a while back. I've done her face and am quite pleased with how it's looking so far: Here's the pictures i've taken, I'll have some more tomorrow.

Pet Portraits work in progress changes

As I added the Boxer Dog to the gallery I thought I would update my work in progress today. I have added my current commission, which is of a lovely Corgi cross called Horace, who I am drawing in coloured pencil to 12" x 16". Go to the Pet Portraits work in progress to look at the latest update.