New Blog

Laura's Pet Portraits Blog has moved to Laura Williams Pet and Wildlife Art. This is because I want to host the blog on a domain of its own and use it to advertise my original artwork and hopefully prints in the future, as well as my Pet Portraits.

I have chosen to move the blog from blogger to wordpress as wordpress has better template customisation and also the option of having pages which means I can almost create a mini website around the new domain name.

All of my posts from this blog has been imported to the new blog - so please take a look at the new one and follow that one, as this one will no longer be updated.

Why Pastels?

I thought I would share with you in this blog post about why I decided to have a go at pastel painting as one of my new mediums to try.

One of the reasons is that I can still use pencils! I've said before that I find it difficult with a brush to capture the detail I'd like as I can't seem to control a brush like I can a pencil. Because pastels come in sticks and pencils it seemed like a medium I personally would be able to create fine detail with.

It also seems a fairly 'claen' medium. By this I mean that there's no brushes or palettes to wash after painting. This suits me because I'm not the tidiest person, but it also means I can do an hour or so's artwork and not spend nearly as long setting up and tidying away afterwards. Of course, pastels can be dusty and I've already discovered that the velour paper picks up fluff as a pastime as well as being unforgiving when trying to remove smudges so I will need to be careful while I'm painting to not smudge pastel everywhere.

Being able to work dark to light or light to dark also appealed to me as I struggle with coloured pencil to remember to keep the highlights light and will often make a drawing darker and darker as i make the light bits too dark to begin with. By being able to add highlights after drawing the mid and dark tones I will hopefully be able to avoid this problem.

And, the main reason is because there are so many artists out there who produce such beautiful pet portraits and wildlife art using pastels that I felt I really should have a go and see if I could do it too. They create a really lovely softness when used to draw fur. Here are a few of my favourite pastel artists:

Sarah's Pet Portraits
Vic Bearcroft
Nutty Art
C.P. Art

New pet portrait started

Hello and Happy August! - Where is the year going?

Anyway, I have begun my latest pet portrait commission today - a pony named Thumper in graphite pencil. I'm really looking forward to working on this one, the photographs I've been given to work from are a really good size and really clear, so going to enjoy getting stuck in with all that hair...

Here is the initial outline, drawn this morning:

Website gallery updates

Just a little note to say I have updated both the original art and the pet portrait commissions galleries this evening, adding my most recent group pet portrait of Beth and Holly and adding the two recent Horse drawings I completed to the originals gallery.

Even though both of the originals are sold I thought I would add them anyway as examples of what I do and what might be available in the future, particularly as I'm enjoying equine portraits so much at the moment!

Art Wishlist - Water mixable oil paints

You may remember that learning to paint with new mediums was on my list of things to do for 2011.

I am a self taught artist and have never been able to paint. I don't have the control over a brush that I have over a pencil to create the fine detail that I can create with a graphite or coloured pencil. But I really should have more patience and learn to paint, so this is where the next Wishlist item comes in...

Winsor & Newton Artisan Water Mixable Oil Paints - These paints look like and work like conventional oil paints but are mixable with water to thin their consistency and also to wash equipment like brushes. This means that potentially hazardous solvents are necessary. They come in 40 different colours and have their own range of solvents, oils, mediums and varnishes so all oil painting techniques are possible. They also dry quicker than conventional oil paints, with some drying in as quick as two days. For more information, have a look at the Winsor & Newton Website.

I have tried painting with acrylics in the past but didn't get on with them due to the very fast drying time - I just didn't work quickly enough, which is why I like the idea of giving the Water Mixable Oils a try.

Laura's Pet Portraits Website Re-design

I have recently uploaded the re-designed Laura's Pet Portraits website. It hasn't changed an awful lot - I have just tried to streamline it a little bit, just sticking to the essential pages and I have reduced the number of galleries to two, one for Pet Portrait Commissions and one for Original Artwork.

The Pet Portrait gallery now contains a selection of the variety of types of portrait I offer rather than showing all of the commissions I have completed as the last ones did.

The Original Artwork Gallery is to showcase the range of original art I complete. Anything that is for sale will be added to this gallery.

I have also changed the links pages, reducing that down to one page. I spent several hours going through my old links ensuring they still worked and that repicrocal exchanges were still in place. If anyone with a relevant website would like to take part in a reciprocal link exchange please add my details to your site (details on the links page) then contact me with your information.

Any comments on the new site are most welcome...

Watten Art and Craft Show

One of my resolutions in my New Year aims for 2011 was to enter an Exhibition. I had a look and found a number of national exhibitions that I liked the sound of but the problem with them was they were all so far away and some required delivering and collecting of work in person, which meant entering would have ended up prohibitively expensive!

So, I've decided to start closer to home and have got details of an Art and Craft Exhibition & Sale of Work at the Village Hall in Watten, which is literally just down the road from me. It runs from the evening of Friday 10th June to Sunday 12th June.

I am currently working on a piece that I'm planning on entering and have a couple of ideas of some equestrian themed pieces I'd like to do. But bearing in mind they also need to be framed I'm not sure how much time I will have so not sure how many pieces I will be able to enter. Hopefully at least two though.

The work in progress of my ongoing coloured pencil Arab Horse study, plus the updated final scan of my latest portrait are both on the Laura's Pet Portraits Facebook page.

Happy Christmas!

Happy Christmas from Laura's Pet Portraits. Hope you all had a lovely day. I only had two Christmas commissions on this year, but they were both quite large and quite time consuming, with one having a full background and the other the first montage I've been asked to do, both in coloured pencil.

Here are the two completed portraits:



I have lots of plans for next year, but I will share them in a post in the New Year. The next portrait on the drawing board is a graphite pencil Horse drawing, updates will of course be shared on here.

Hello

Hello, just a little post to say I'm back! I have been working on a big jewellery related project since January that has meant little time for anything else, so I haven't been doing any Pet Portraits recently. However, the project is finishing soon and I will be back to the Pet Portraits.

Due to this, I have nothing exciting to show you, but hopefully there will be artwork soon for you to look at. There may also be a Facebook page to look at soon as I have discovered the joys of Facebook!!

Back online

Well i'm eventually back online. I was very pleased to discover we could get broadband out here as it's in the countryside a bit, so I thought we might be restricted to dial - up. I think I would have gone raving mad putting up with that after years of broadband!! We are sort of settled in the new house, just the usual sort of teething troubles with buying an old house that's been empty for over a year! It's also smaller than the last one so finding room for everything has been fun.

But i'm officially back to work tomorrow with Pebbles' and co's portrait to complete and a graphite Springer Spaniel to start and complete by the end of the month. I will have some updates on Pebbles, Pickles and Arillus tomorrow.

I think i've finally changed my address details and telephone number on everything, including the website, which I did today. I'm having fun with my printer at the moment. It is printing, but very very slowly and the computer is telling me the document hasn't printed when it is actually printing. Hopefully it will survive for a bit longer and not pack up completely!

I am feeling very motivated at the moment, so my year is officially starting in February, not January like everyone elses! 2009 is going to be a year of artwork.

Pet portraits in progress - Tiny and Taylor

I have two pet portraits to post work in progress updates on, so thought I may as well blog them together.


The first is Tiny. This is a graphite 12" x 16" portrait. It is only a small update, but there will be more to see after the weekend:

The second is Taylor. This coloured pencil portrait is really coming on now and the next scan is likely to be the final one. Here is today's progress:

Pomeranian Pet Portrait

Here is a pet portrait I have recently completed for a customer for a Birthday gift. It was a repeat order from a customer I did a pet portrait for last year, so I was really pleased they liked the first one enough to order a second one. It is 8" x 10" in graphite pencil.

Here is Pepi, a Pomeranian....

Coloured pencil portrait

Here is a scan of one of the pet portraits I am currently working on. It's a 10" x 12" coloured pencil pet portrait of a corgi / collie cross called Chacho.


It's been fun getting back to the coloured pencils as most of my recent commissions have been in graphite and Chacho has such gorgeous colouring. I've also recently purchased some new coloursoft pencils in different colours so I now have the full range of browns and golds which I think helps create richer colours rather than gaving to mix them, which sometimes makes them a bit 'muddy'.

No more Christmas commissions

I have decided to close my waiting list to any orders required before Christmas. I was thinking today at work that I could probably manage one or two more on top of my current list, then came home to find two orders in the post from the same customer and an email order form. I was just sorting those out - doing deposit invoices and adding them to my waiting list spreadsheet when another customer called to confirm a go ahead on an order discussed a couple of weeks ago. So - 4 commssions ordered in one day! That's a first.

Last year I was still accepting orders at the end of November and ended up rushing in the week leading up to Christmas and i'm not doing that this year. I shall be organised. I have 11 pet portraits to comlpete between now and Christmas which is plenty, so there should be lots of artwork to add on here in the coming weeks.

If you were thinking of ordering a portrait for Christmas I do supply Gift Vouchers as an alternative.

Hello!

Hello, just thought i'd better post on here so if any readers are still reading they know i've not died!

Basically, i've been doing very little in the way of artwork recently that I can show on here. I have been working on a commission for a Christmas present that is taking ages and I've done a bit on vada the cat's portrait, however it's such a small amount an update would be a bit pointless! I've been doing loads of extra hours at work and I also have baby rats that were born 4 weeks ago, so the rats have been taking up an incredible amount of time - I have three separate groups to free-range at the moment and try to let them out for at least an hour each! But don't worry - very soon me and the 'vermin' are moving out to a studio, which means they can come out while I draw. The studio is a section of our workshop/shed/garage that has been partitioned off. It has two windows and central heating. Steve is currently putting up shelves and building me a desk and I am painting a rat cage. The room has been painted - it's a very pale, girly pink and I'm looking forward to having my very own space where I can pile up rubbish everywhere without Steve moaning at me. I'm planning on putting up photos and posters on the walls - hmmm, I've got an Orlando Bloom one somewhere.

My waiting list is growing - I now have six commissions:

• A birthday gift of a lab and his owner (required mid Nov)
• A welsh cob (required early Dec)
• Two German Shepherd Dogs (required mid Dec)
• Vada, black cat (started)
• Christmas surprise commission (started)
• A Terrier cross - Taylor

My plan is to get Vada and Taylor's portraits done first as neither of them have completion dates and I am very bad at getting stuff done without a date looming over my head. The lab will get done alongside these and all three will be finished by mid November. That then leaves me free to do Christmas commissions.

So now you know what i've been up to and what i'm going to be up to and hopefully there will be some portraits to show you soon.

It's nearly Christmas!

I had my first query for a Christmas pet portrait a couple of days ago - I can't believe it's that time already, these people are so organised.

Pet portraits make fantastic Christmas presents - they are incredibly personal and are an excellent way to preserve a memory of a past pet. If you can't get hold of photographs I also sell Gift Vouchers so you could always give a voucher instead.

Personal work in progress pages

I can't really show any of the pet portraits i'm working on at the moment, as the two current ones are both surprises. When customers commission a pet portrait that is a present for someone and they don't want it shown on the blog, I make them a personal work in progress page. It's just a page I put on the internet that only they have a link to so they can still watch the progress of their pet portrait online and can add imput if they wish. Here's an example of one: Pet Portrait work in progress.

Early start

I was very cross with myself yesterday as I lazed in bed till 11.10, so I was determined to be up at a decent time this morning. My alarm went off at 7.15 and I was up and walking the dogs by half past. At 8.20 I was sat down drawing. I have been working on two pet portraits today, both are surprise presents so i can't show them on here. Both are in graphite which makes a nice change after the coloured pencil ones i've had recently.

I've found a new method of working with long white fur today. One of the commissions is of a westie and the photos are excellent so I have so much detail to portray. It's taking so long, but I think it will be worth it in the end. Anyway, in the paler, highlighted bits with slightly less detail I have been laying down a pale layer of graphite all over, then using my electric eraser to pick out the highlights then filling in the shadows afterwards. I suppose it's a variation of drawing with negative spaces. It's reasonably quick and is working out quite effective.

Back to the easel

It's time for me to knuckle down and really concentrate on my artwork. My long run of visitors is coming to an end after tommorrow night and my overtime at work is also slowing down, due to people being back off their holidays. It means I will have more time to myself again to work on my portraits.

I currently have one large graphite pet portrait of two dogs on my waiting list, so I will have plenty of time to work on other things whilst working on that. I am planning on working on some more ACEO's as well as completing a couple of graphite portraits I have been working on as 'portfolio' pieces. I am also going to knuckle down and practice the painting. I have got some fantastic books to work from and several ideas about how I want to go forward with my artwork and I think being able to produce realsitic paintings as well as drawings is going to be important.

Of course, anything new will be added here, so watch this space!

Pet Portraits in progress

Today I have been working on three different Pet Portraits. I have added the first layer of 'underpainting' on the coloured pencil portrait of Rosie, the Greyhound. Here it so far:

I have also started two new Pet Portraits, one is a horse portrait, that I only received a few days ago and needs to be completed by 14th May! I'm not sure yet if I can put that one on here though, as it's for a Birthday.

The other one is an 8" x 10" graphite portrait of a beautiful little Westie, called Jack. Here is the initial sketch: