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

2011 plans

Welcome to 2011. I have quite a lot of things planned for Laura's Pet Portraits this year. I haven't been working on my artwork a lot at all in the last year, so this year I am really going to get back in to it and make it a big priority, here are a few of the things I would like to get done:

Website redesign - The website needs a little bit of a re-organisation and change in design I think. I want to produce something a bit more crisp and stylish. I have an idea in my head of what I want it to look like, so hopefully I will be able to create it! This will be an ongoing project so it may be a while before it changes but hopefully in the next few months.

Exhibitions and Societies - This year I would like to join a couple of Art Societies, particularly those concentrated on graphite art and animals. This then should enable me to submit some art for exhibition which I've never ever done but always had a vague sort of idea that I would like to, so this year will be the year it will happen.

Different Subjects - I tend to mostly draw dogs in my commissions and generally they are in pretty standard poses. This year I would like to work on a wider range of subjects, particularly wildlife such as Big Cats, Wolves and local Scottish Wildlife and maybe even some birds. And I'd like to draw domestic pets but in some interesting poses or in action.

A-Z of Art - This is a little project I have come up with to help keep me motivated to draw and also to help with the goal of drawing different subjects and interesting poses. I will work my way through the alphabet and apply a theme for each letter. Then do a drawing for each theme. It can be any subject but they will all be pet or animal related and I will include a variety of mediums and sizes of artwork - I haven't set many rules!! Just that by the end of the year I need to have got to Z!

All artwork will of course go on the blog, of commissions as well as my A - Z project so there should be lots to show you this year. I will be back soon with my 'A' theme.

Happy New Year to you all.

I'm still here!

Just thought i'd post to say I'm still alive and I have been working on a graphite pet portrait recently, but it's a surprise for a present, so i'm unable to show it on the blog. I finished it today and have just emailed a copy to the customer for approval.

I have a coloured pencil pet portrait to finish in the next few days as well, which is of a Brittany Spaniel, so I will have some updates of that one I can show you. I am planning on doing some of that tommorrow, and I am also thinking of trying out my new pastel pencils as well, as I still haven't done anything with them yet. I've been doing a lot of overtime at work, and when i'm at home i've had portraits to do, as well as my Sister coming to stay, so i've been really busy. I'm thinking of trying a different subject matter with the pastels - still animals, but possibly some wildlife, rather than domestic animals. I shall update you all tomorrow.