Christmas Updates...

Here is an update on some of my commissions required for the Christmas deadline.

"Dad's girls"...
This painting was quite a challenge to incorporate six dogs in a composition that worked plus the gun, pheasant and typography.

A credit to my client, Rebecca, her brother and mum for taking some superb reference photos fueled by copious amounts of dog treats for the six beautiful ( but now slightly fatter!) English Springer Spaniels.
The painting is a Christmas present for Rebecca's dad.









Also...
The largest pet portrait that I have painted "has left the building".
By "LARGE", this is the biggest canvas ever! at an enormous five foot by four foot and we just squeezed it ( boxed up) into the client's 4X4 without any damage to box or the car itself.

A really fun and enjoyable painting to undertake, the three alpacas were painted in a contemporary style using oils, with lots of loose brush strokes and many layers of paint. Michael, the client, has crafted a wooden surround/ border which should set off the canvas really well. The painting is a Christmas present for Michael's wife.

I am looking forward to viewing photos of the unveiling of both on Christmas morning
and hope that you all enjoy viewing the paintings.

On the easel for the mid January deadline are a portrait of Molly in artist's watercolours and a contemporary portrait of Rhubarb in oils on canvas...

Happy New Year to everyone...

A New Wall Plaque and Work in Progress...

I have now completed one of the bigger Christmas pet portrait commissions and I'm hoping to be able to upload it onto the Artist's blog without the recipient finding out. I wouldn't want to spoil the surprise on Christmas Day! Here's a sneak preview...

I've also commissioned a Pet Portraits and More wall plaque to go outside my studio entrance. Made from 10mm acrylic and brushed stainless steel it looks superb now fixed to the wall, see photos.

Next on the agenda is the completion of all of the other commissions for the Christmas deadline, should all be done, dry and ready for framing by early to mid December....

I hope to upload these in due course, as well as the one previously mentioned and many thanks to all of my customers for patiently waiting in the queue for completion...

An Early Christmas Present for Me!

Regarding Christmas, I have bought myself a digital compact camera, (Leica D-Lux 4) which will be ideal for carrying around to clients and once I have got to grips with it, should take some great photos!

To date I have had a play with the settings and uploaded a few shots taken on our usual walk around the field, where we met up with Cassie's pal Benji and also taken various "arty" shots in the garden.

The camera has had good reviews and true to these I have enjoyed using it so far, messing around with grainy black and white mode and depth of field/ focus.

In fact it seems more versatile than my DSLR plus it is easier to carry around and more user friendly.

A good reason to go on a few extra dog walks as an excuse for taking some more photos!

Well its now time to get back to the easel and carry on with the pet portraits over the weekend...

Christmas Commissions... This post will self destruct in five seconds!

It seems like ages since I have had time to write an artist's blog update for the site!

It might be due to the fact that I have several large pet portraits to complete for the Christmas deadline, some large and others not so big.

By "LARGE", the biggest canvas that I have ever worked on is an enormous five foot by four foot commission.

This will be a contemporary pet portrait of three slightly exotic animals, should be great fun to paint in oils on this scale. However... other than that I'm sworn to secrecy.

I also have six traditional style dog portraits to be painted in oils on the go. They are in various stages of completion but are all looking good so far!

Cassie has also had an early present of a harness, which was intended to stop her pulling on the lead so much and worked for a couple of weeks, till she got used to it. I think we will both need some more intensive lead training in due course! However, I feel much happier with her safely restrained when we go out on car journeys, especially in Summer when she might just go out for a ride in the Sebring.

An Update on William's Portrait...

An update on William's portrait which has now been framed and is currently hanging in Margaret's hallway for visitors to see.

We took a trip to the framers in Kettering and it was quite difficult to choose the right frame to set off the portrait but not to overpower the painting. A selection of mouldings were rejected from various timber finishes, antique silver and copper bronze but nothing seemed right. Eventually we spotted a two tone brushed metallic frame and knew immediately that this was the right choice.

Lots of guests and viewers have passed on favorable comments about the portrait of William and Margaret has also kindly posted a paragraph about it....

"I cannot put into words how pleased I am with my oil painting of William. It captures the essence of my little dog, an image I will treasure forever"

Next on the easel is a large 24" x 20" oil portrait of six dogs, to be completed and ready for Christmas...

William in Oils on Canvas...

Here we have the finished 12" x 16" oil on canvas painting of William. Commissioned by Margaret, It's hard to believe that William is sixteen years young, as he looks just like a puppy in the reference photos. As she lives locally, I had an opportunity to go to Margaret's house and take a great selection of photos of William, which always helps for composing the final painting.

The next step is to go over to the framers in Kettering and choose a contemporary frame (not sure what colour as yet?) to complement both the painting and Margaret's decor. I think that we need a quite chunky wooden, possibly oak frame or antique silver but we will see on the day!

This month we also finally made the descision to have Cassie spayed, mainly to make her life easier and her less prone to illness when she gets older. She has been confined to the house for nearly three weeks as a result of the operation and has made a good recovery...now we seem to be getting back to normal at last!

Joe Unveiled...

Welcome to my latest update...

Here we have a fantastic sequence of photos from Mandy, depicting her daughter unwrapping the surprise painting of Joe. Some quite emotional moments and as quoted by Mandy...

"Hi Steve,

The portrait was a great success. I gave it to her the night before the wedding.

I think the photos of her opening it say it all."

I'm glad that the portrait was well received, and looks great in the contemporary pewter frame that we chose. Once again many thanks to Mandy for the great set of photos and for giving me permission to use them.

Joe, Horse Portrait in Artist's Watercolours...

My latest painting is a portrait of a horse called Joe. Commissioned by Mandy as a special wedding present for her daughter who is getting married early this month. Mandy's daughter has had quite a few ponies through the years but Joe is the favourite. In 1997 she rode him and qualified for Horse of the Year Show at Wembley, the hi-light of the horse world.

The 12" x 16" portrait of Joe is painted in artist's watercolours onto Bockingford heavyweight paper. I had some really superb reference photos from Mandy which has enabled me to include as much detail as possible into capturing a quite lifelike representation of Joe.

The background is a moody "wet on wet" technique colourwash and I suggested the irregular edge to the painting, which looks not only contemporary and fresh, but is a bit of a trademark of mine. It should look superb when the portrait is mounted and framed, the icing on the cake! I have included a full crop of the painting and a detail image and would very much like to receive some photos of Mandy's daughter with Joe's portrait, when it is being presented to her on her big day!

Some feedback from Mandy...

"The portrait is amazing. I am absolutely thrilled with it. looking forward to seeing it framed and can't wait to see Sophie's face when she opens it".

The Pet Portrait Paparazzi....

The Pet Portrait Paparazzi have been out quite recently and taken a few

snap shots...The first is a photo of Samantha with Barney's portrait

framed and ready to be delivered to her dad as a belated fathers day

present.

A bit of feedback following Samantha's presentation to her dad... He

took the painting of Barney into work to show his friends he loves it.

Thank you ever so much again, the painting looks so much like Barney.

And more paparazzi snaps this time of Cassie with her portrait framed

and ready to put up on the wall. I think she was a bit surprised when

the flash went off but the pay off from the photographer ( a handful of

biscuits!) went down well.

I have also been working on a new commission of a horse as a

wedding present which is being painted in artist's watercolours.

Additionally I have a dog portrait,

William, to be painted in oils in progress...

Barney's Portrait in Artist's Watercolours...

Here we have a 12"x16" artist's watercolour painting of Barney. He was painted as a belated Father's Day present.

Quite a challenging commission as I had to work from quite small photos of Barney scanned in and enlarged so that I could extrapolate as much detail as possible for reference.

I enjoy working in watercolours as they dry very quickly, therefore you can build up the layers of paint and start adding fur detail in rapid succession. Barney's owner Samantha, who commissioned the painting said that Barney very much loved sunbathing in the garden. We both decided that an atmospheric grassy/ sky background would suit our portrait perfectly and great fun to do in a wet on wet, colour wash technique.

The portrait will be framed and off to it's owner on Monday and I am very much looking forward to Samantha's dads reaction, to his surprise belated Father's Day gift.

Some feedback from Samantha's first viewing of Barney's portrait...

Hi Steve

"I love it, it looks so like him".

"Yes the portrait is brilliant, I can't wait to pick it up".

Walkies...

I've been busy over the last couple of weeks designing new business cards and double sided flyers for my "Pet portraits and More" business. Decided to have a break and the sunshine has made this a great weekend, with lots of country walks for Cassie. We've walked around most of the countryside in this area, which is quite picturesque and I must endevour to take my decent camera along to take some creative photos.

Cassie's favourite walk is around the perimeter of a wheat field just up the road. The field is surrounded by trees that have grown tremendously over the last few years. They have burst out of their protective corrugated plastic sleeves, that I think are used to keep the young trees upright and protect from rabbits etc: eating them before they are established. Cassie likes to wander between the trees and usually comes back with a plastic sleeve for us to play with. Funny that a found toy on route is always more fun for her to play with than the expensive dog frisbee I bought!

Still I dont mind as long as she's enjoying herself as you can see in the photos.

After the weekend break...I have two pet portrait commissions waiting in the wings, one on hold till the owner has her dog clipped and the other, just need to choose the best reference photos and its all systems go!

A series of illustrations for JJ Murphy & Co

In addition to the pet portraits, every now and again other quite big commercial projects come along. The featured illustration is part of a series of twenty commercial illustrations for Murphy's Irish Stout. The illustrations re created and in some cases re invented a complete poster campaign for Murphy's Irish Stout. Spanning from the turn of the twentieth century up to the nineteen seventies. Different media such as watercolour, gouache and ink were used for the posters in order to reproduce the techniques and styles of the past.

Commissioned by Whitbread Pub Partnership in order to create brand awareness and a visually decorative element to their Irish pubs internationally.

All of the posters were aged with creases and tears and in some cases a little dab of cold tea before being sealed in decorative frames.

A fantastic project from start to finish and I would very much like to work on another like this in the future!

Watercolour Pet Portrait

A watercolour painting of my mum and dad's German Shepherd called Penny. Right from a puppy, just a few weeks old she always had one ear up and the other down.

I took many photos of her for reference and in almost all she has her characteristic mischevious look and her tongue hanging out.

I really enjoyed painting her using artist's watercolours on a heavy weight white watercolour paper. The painting is 12" x 16" framed in an antique silver frame and looks great hanging on my mum's living room wall.

Penny also featured as part of an exhibition of my pet portraits and other paintings at the local heritage centre. A superb venue with a large upstairs art gallery featuring the work of local artists and a separate gallery room that can be hired by individual artists to display their work.