Pet Portrait work in progress

Here is another update on Dylan's coloured pencil pet portrait.

Latest Pet Portrait

As promised, here is Dylan's pet portrait so far. I'm enjoying doing this one. I like drawing black dogs, either in colour or graphite pencil. There's just such a brilliant range of tones available.

Cavalier Spaniel Finished

I have today finished Jobi's pet portrait. It is 12" x 16" in coloured pencil on heavyweight cartridge paper. Here it is:

I have also been working on the coloured pencil pet portrait of Dylan, the Labrador cross Springer. I will upload the scan later for you to see.

Website updates

I got an order yesterday from a customer and realised I haven't amended my order forms on my website! I still had the watercolour pencils option on there and had failed to add my new sizes in the graphite and coloured pencils. I was also getting a security warning when I accessed the order form. I'm not sure if these things are stopping people ordering but i'm quite sure they aren't helping. After all, online ordering is meant to be convenient, and it's certainly not convenient when you can't order all the sizes that are listed on the price list. To say I was annoyed at myself is an understatment!

It's all sorted now though, both the online and printable order forms are ammended and I have removed the javascript that was causing the security warning. It was a big lesson to me to ensure that everything is updated properly when I change things

Cavalier Spaniel nearly finished

I have completed Jobi, the Cavalier King Charles Spaniel's second ear today. His pet portrait is now nearly finished. Here it is today:

New Pet Portrait started

I started my latest pet portrait commission today - a coloured pencil drawing of a Springer Spaniel cross Labrador called Dylan. I have just drawn the outline so far, but will have more to show by the weekend. I have had to darken up the scan so you can see the outline, the paper is actually white!

Cavalier Spaniel update

I have done a little bit of work on the Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, Jobi today. My new black pencil finally arrived, so I was able to do the final layer of black on his ear. Here it is so far:

Caithness County Show

We went to Caithness County Show today. It's primarily an Agricultural show and is held every year, alternating venues between Wick and Thurso. There was judging of animals such as horses, both in-hand and with riders, cattle, sheep, pigs, rabbits, guinea pigs and poultry. There was also craft judging on artwork and needlework and cake making and things. Basically, your typical county show. They had some nice artwork entered, I think I might enter something next year.

There was also displays from the Junior Pipe Band and traditional scottish Dancers, as well as loads of trade stands at which to spend money.

They finished off with a fantastic horse display, showing all the different ways in which horses have been used past and present. They started off with two beautiful Clydesdales in full harness and went through west indians and americans in covered wagons, endurance horses and 3 - day eventers, through to pony club and Riding for the Disabled.

Here are a few photos:

Yorkshire Terrier

This Yorkshire Terrier is a coloured pencil drawing I have produced as a sample for a potentially exciting project. Unfortunately I can't say any more than that, but here is the drawing:

My kitchen

Here it is - my attempt at room planning. Not sure what it would be called.. graphic design perhaps? Anyway, it was good fun and took up a few hours, especially as it's all to scale.

Pet Portrait update

I have done a little more on Jobi's coloured pencil pet portrait today. I am waiting for a new black pencil to arrive - mine is about 2" long! - and then tommorrow, I can finish off his ears. Here he is so far:

Lovely card from a customer

I got a really nice thank you card from a customer a couple of days ago. I often get sent lovely emails from people, but a card is just a bit extra special.

This one was from the owner of Winney, the black crossbreed I drew in graphite recently. The portrait was commissioned as a gift by a friend of Winney's owner. She put several things in her card, but my favourite bit was: "Your drawing will stay with us forever in our home, it has pride of place in our hall to be viewed by every visitor and to be seen by us as we go about our daily routine." I liked this as it says to me that what I do is more than simply copy a photo of someone's dog. When the pet has sadly passed, a portrait is a unique way of capturing the pet and having them close by forever.

A different kind of drawing

Today I have been drawing, but not pet portraits. As I said earlier, we are curently decorating and as well as decorating we have been looking at new kitchens. We can't afford one at the moment, however, it's the next thing on the list to be sorted. My ideal kitchen is going to have integral appliances, a flat hob, veg baskets that pull out of cupboards and.. saving the best till last..... a range oven. I love them, so much room and they just look brilliant!

On a more practical note - today I have been designing a kitchen we can actually afford and I spent this afternoon drawing a scale plan and colouring it in. It was great fun and everyone, including me, thought the end result was very good! I will scan it at some point, so you can all have a look.

Coloured Pencil portrait update - Jobi

I have been working on Jobi's pet portrait again today. I have used a pale blue and lavender coloured pencils to create a base layer for the black, then used indigo to depict the shadow areas on his ears. This blue 'underpainting' will create a base for the black to be layered onto and will help create depth as well as shining through in the highlighted areas.

Visitors

I have visitors staying with me again - Steve's parents have come to stay until early August. They were originally coming on Sunday, then I got a phone call on Wednesday evening:-

Bett (steve's mum): "Hi Laura, we're all packed"
Me: "Oh right, when are you leaving"
Bett: "At 2 0' clock in the morning"
Me: "What, tommorrow morning?!"
Bett: "Yes"

At which point I was thinking - Oh no, I have to hoover and mop the floor and clean the bathrooms and make the bed and dust, all after work tommorrow. As it was, they didn't arrive until six as they went to visit Steve's cousin first so I had plenty of time and Steve did a lot in the morning while I was at work.

Anyway, we are decorating while they're here, started stripping wallpaper in the hall today. I'm really pleased to have them here, I love it when they come to visit.

Pet Portrait update - Jobi

Yes, i'm back. Don't worry, I didn't fall in a black hole - i've been doing loads of extra hours at work, I practically worked full time last week and have been so tired.

But today i'm back to my usual hours and back to the Pet Portraits. I did some work on the coloured pencil portrait of Jobi, the cavalier King Charles Spaniel today. Here he is so far:


Jobi's portrait is due to be finished the end of next week, then I have another commission to do that is a surprise for a Birthday in October and I have another Greyhound portrait to do, which is another charity gift voucher to raise money for Greyhound rescue. I am waiting for photographs from the winner of the voucher and I will be able to show you the progress here on the blog.

Home for the weekend

I've not posted at all this weekend because i've been home for my cousin's wedding party. I flew down to Bristol Airport on Saturday afternoon and back up to Inverness on Sunday. Felt quite the jetsetter, left home at 11.20am on Saturday and was back about 3pm on Sunday. Just over 24 hours to go nearly the full length of the UK and stop off for a party. The wedding party was great fun and it was lovely seeing my family all in one place without having to charge round visiting everyone and hoping no-one is too offended if I run out of time to see everybody!

I managed to get a window seat on the flight back and was amazed I could see the ground still. I got so excited I took some photos out of the plane window. I think they're pretty good, so here are a couple of them:

The clouds

This is a port. I'm not sure where. you can see the boat wakes in the sea.