I finally have had time to post an update of Tara’s pet portrait painting.

The first two photos are close-up views of the eyes and fur base colours.

Left eye:

Right eye: This shot also shows some of the brown tones that have been used in the base of the tabby fur.

In this next photo I have added the cream markings on her mouth and I am beginning to model the shape of her face under the white fur. Although grey colours are often used to depict white fur, using other shadow colours of the right value such as pinks, violet and lilac can add depth into the white fur without making it look dirty (which is easy to do on drafting film).

I think I forgot to mention this previously, but I intensified the strength of the whiskers in white pencil earlier on to avoid loosing them in the fur. At the end I will go back and redefine them and put shadows in where needed.

The next update will include the final version of Tara’s Pet Portrait.

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This pet portrait is an acrylic painting of Moe, a gorgeous little pug that seems to be saying “Go ahead, Make my Day”, or maybe just “This IS my happy face!” Gotta love those pups with squished wrinkly faces!

8″x10″ gallery wrapped canvas

Pug Breed Profile

Pug dog were originally developed in China over a thousand years ago. When they were taken to Europe by the Dutch East India Company, they became a favorite breed of royalty and the aristocracy.

Pugs are a small Toy breed, with an ideal weight range of 6.3-8.1kg (14-18lbs). They have square compact bodies, wrinkled skin and tightly curled tails.

Pugs are intelligent dogs that are even tempered with a happy and lively disposition that makes them very suitable as family pets. They have short smooth coats, but are heavy shedders for their size, so regular brushing is required, as well as cleaning of the wrinkles in their face to prevent infections developing.

Pugs are an indoor breed. They are relatively inactive indoors which makes them suitable for apartment living, as long as they receive regular exercise to avoid becoming overweight. They are quite playful, however due to their short noses, Pugs can have difficulties breathing so strenuous exercise, especially in hot weather, should be avoided. They can also be prone to skin and eye problems.

If a Pug sounds like the breed for you and your family, please contact a reputable breeder in your area, or better still, a Pug Rescue group such as the following:

Pug Rescue Victoria

Pug Rescue Inc

Pug Rescue Sydney

Perth Pug Rescue

Pug Rescue.com United States

Pug Welfare-Rescue United Kingdom

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This pet portrait of our cat Tara is my latest challenge - rendering white fur on drafting film with color pencils and acrylic. The look on her face in the reference photo is priceless and very typically a disdainful ‘Tara’ look. One of the most important things about choosing a suitable reference photo to create a pet portrait from, is making sure that you select a photo that shows the animals personality. Tara is not your average friendly physically affectionate cat, and to portray her as one wouldn’t be accurate to her personality!

There is a good reason for her attitudes to humans though. Tara and her litter mates were dumped in the bush as kittens when they were 6-8 weeks old, and seven years later she still hasn’t totally overcome her fear and mistrust of humans, even though she is quite attached to our family in her own way, she is very timid, dosn’t like to be touched or picked up and this winter is the first year that she has been willing to come inside and even sleeps on the foot of our bed. It has taken a lot of gentle persistence and as long as we don’t push her to do anything she dosn’t want to do, she seems to be quite happy being close to us without being a lap cat.

This is a cropped version of my reference photo.

In this first image below, I have painted the eyes using a variety of cream, jasmine, several green pencils and some reddish browns and dark green for the shadow areas. The pupils have been done with indigo and black prismacolors and the highlights with white and light blue. I have also started to block in the lightest highlights with white, using pencil strokes in the direction and length of the fur in each area.

Now I have started modelling the nose with creams, pinks and pinkish browns and black grape for the darker shadows, with tiny amount of indigo over the black grape for teh darkest areas.

Now I have started to introduce the browns and creams as the basis of the tabby pattern on her head. I have also strengthened her whiskers with very firm pressure with the white pencil so that I don’t loose them as the fur develops.

After using dark brown and chocolate with some black grape I have very sparingly ticked in some black hairs in the darkest areas.

And that’s where I will leave it for today, make sure to add my blog to your RSS feeds to see when this portrait is updated.

In the meantime, if you need a good cat related laugh today, have a look at this rather humorous captioned cat photoblog I came across http://icanhascheezburger.com

Bye for now!

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Technorati Tags: dog, cat art, feline artist, painting, artist, artwork, drafting film, cat, photograph, humour, painting, pet portrait, artwork, color pencil art, pet portraits

This is another quick experiment on drafting film, in this one I have pushed the drafting film to the limit to see how much pigment it will hold and I have also experimented with a more painterly approach and burnished the whole lot thoroughly!

Its not quite the result I was aiming for (it needs more layers but there is no more tooth left in the film), but at least my eight year old horse mad daughter loves it:)

I actually completed this one before starting the Weimaraner, so I hope I learned enough from doing this one to get the result I am aiming for with the Weim. I did enjoy doing this one and the journey is sometimes more important than the destination, so it was worth it.

I keep getting asked asked to do more horse art, so keep an eye out for them in the future!

Cheers

Michelle

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This is the first portrait I have done of a Weimaraner. I am creating this one with a slightly looser, more “painterly” style rather than my normal “include every hair” level of detail.

This is on drafting film (I doubt that I will ever go back to any other support! using colour pencils, mostly Derwents, Prismacolors and the odd FC Polychromos.

As usual, I sketch in the basic landmarks, work the eyes to about 90-95% completion (if I don’t get them right, the rest of the portrait will not come together) and the establish the highlights.

In the next photo, I have started to work in the shadow areas on the chest and body using a French Grey (sorry I can’t remember the % of FG, I tend to work intuitively with the colours, and rarely keep a track of the colours I am using).

I prefer to have a full range of values in my artwork, this can sometimes be a challenge with images like this one where there is fairly strong backlighting. We’ll see if I can pull it off;)

In the next image I have added some indigo to deepen the shadow areas.

Now I have started working in the midtones on the chest and body, working on the shapes for the different values rather than focusing on individual hairs.

I have continued building the chest and body with a variety of pinks, mauves, purples and french greys. The lips have been done with browns, pinks, light purple and black grape for the shadow area. I’ve also started the background using a variety of soft subtle greens. While a stronger background would definitely make the dog ‘pop’, I really want to portray the soft, loving side of the Weimaraner, so I have deliberately chosen more subtle colours.

A few more layers have been added to the background and I have started the first layers on the face and nose, which is looking a little wonky in this image, probably because I took the photo at an angle to avoid reflection of the drafting film.

Thats the last update I have at the moment. I’m having fun experimenting with a slightly different style, and would love to know what you think, so please leave a comment!

Until I return with another update, here is some information on the Weimaraner breed, just in case your interested!

Weimaraner Breed Profile

Country of Origin: Germany

Colour: Silver-grey

Coat type: There are two coat types, the Short haired which is smooth and sleek and the long haired variety which have a soft medium length top coat, with long feathering on the ears, tail and breeching and moderate feathering on the legs, belly and chest.

Temperament: Alert, affectionate, willing, obedient (when trained) dedicated and devoted to their family, love being the centre of attention.

Group: Gun Dog

Size: Dogs 59-70 cm and bitches 57-65 cm.

Weight: dogs - 30 to 40 kg, bitches - 25 to 35 kg

Original Purpose: Originally bred as a versatile hunting dog, and they are still used for this purpose today.

The Weimaraner is good natured and totally devoted to his owners, although they can be aloof with strangers. Affectionately known as the ‘grey ghost’, the Weimaraner is one of the worlds most versatile hunting dog that is able to point, retrieve, track and hold at bay. They are highly intelligent and excel in Obedience and Agility trials, and make wonderful companions if they are allowed to be a part of the family and are given an outlet for their intelligence.

Weimaraners need contact and companionship with their owners and are an energetic breed that needs lots of physical and mental stimulation to avoid boredome problems developing. The coat requires minimal regular grooming to remove dead hair (more frequent during coat changes) as well as regular ear cleaning, nail clipping and dental care.

Weimaraners are beautiful dogs - but that dosn’t make them suitable for everyone, so if you are considering adding one of these gorgeous dogs to your family, make sure you thoroughly research the breed and spend time getting to know them to make sure they are the right breed for you and your lifestyle.

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I painted this Orangutan in acrylics some time ago, but havn’t managed to get a very good photo of it yet, so I think I may have to have it professionally scanned before I can offer prints for sale to help support Orangutan conservation. I am planning on doing a few more portraits of these beautiful creatures for the same purpose when I locate suitable reference photos.

“Wise One”

18″x24″, Acrylics on Gallery wrapped canvas

Orangutan Information:

Orangutans are a critically endangered species that desperately need our help to stop poaching and to protect their rainforest habitats which are being destroyed for palm oil plantations - without major intervention Sumatran Orangutans will be extinct in the wild by 2010, and Bornean Orangutans will be extinct in the wild by 2015.

Orangutans are highly intelligent primates that are one of our closest relatives being 97% genetically identical to humans. The orangutan is the only great ape that comes from Asia (gorillas, chimpanzees and bonobos all come from Africa). The two species of ornagutan are the Sumatran orangutan (Pongo abelii) and the Bornean orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus). Sumatra is the largest island in Indonesia and Borneo is the island above Java in central South East Asia and is divided between Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei.

Oranguatan’s have a lifespan in the wild of 35-40 years, although in captivity they can live into their fifty’s. They reach puberty at about 8 years of age, but females arn’t ready to reproduce until they are in their teens. Orangutans have the longest period of dependence on their mothers of any animal in the world and the babies nurse until they are about six years of age. In order to learn all the skills needed for their survival, males stay with their mothers for a few more years, but the females stay even longer so that they can learn the mothering skills by watching their mother raise their younger sibling.

Orangutans have the longest time between reproduction of any other mammal - only once every eight years which means that females will only have 4 or 5 babies in their lifetime. This is why wild orangutan populations will not recover from poaching and habitat destruction without major intervention.

When reproductions of this painting are available for purchase, a percentage of the profit from each sale will be donated to the Australian Orangutan Project, a non-partisan organization that supports many orangutan conservation organizations. The AOP is non-partisan and funds are distributed due to conservation needs only. There is only one part time administrator, but as no salaries are paid to the many volunteers who work for AOP, a very high percentage of donations go straight to the organisations that are involved in the active welfare of Orangutans habitat protection.

Australian Orangutan Project Website

Please support the Australian Orangutan Project either by making a donation, adopting and orangutan, becoming a member or purchasing some of the beautiful orangutan merchandise from the AOP shop including toys, books, greeting cards, t-shirts and more.

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I nearly forgot to post an update with the final of my lion, so here he is, Part II of “We Three Kings”, 8″x8″, artist colour pencil on drafting film.

I’m not surprised that more and more colour pencil artists are starting to use drafting film for their work. I am now absolutely convinced that drafting film is the perfect support for use with colour pencils, at least with my style and technique. It is definitely not easy to use initially, and it handles totally different to any other support that I have worked with (it dosn’t take as many layers so you really have to make each mark count!), but the results as definitely worth it, so I will be doing a lot more work on film in the future!

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This colour pencil and acrylic portrait of Blink, a beautiful cat owned by a fellow artist, was also created on drafting film. I love this up-close-and-personal, larger than life composition, where the main focus is on the eyes - in this case the eyes are huge, 2″x 1.5″ in size, while the whole artwork is about 10″x9″ in size.

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pet portrait,

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Yes, I know this post is out of order:) better late than never, right?

This is the first in my big cat triptych, “We Three Kings”, and my first experiment with using colour pencils on drafting film. I started with a much more detailed sketch than I normally do because I my focus was on learning how to use this support (it handles very differently to any other support that I have tried).

I did find that not all drafting films are created equal:( Although the type I used for this tiger was excellent for the pigment saturation and luminosity it allowed, unlike other types of drafting film, although it erased easily, I could not get much pigment back into the erased areas….making erasing mistakes impossible!

Considering this was an experiment, I am very pleased with how he turned out. Oh and if you are wondering about the title - I didn’t actually start out planning to do a Big Cat triptych, but the night I finished this one I was laying in bed when the title popped into my head (actually, titles for my artwork rarely pop gently into my head, they usually hit me like a sledgehammer;). I knew instantly that the next one in the series would be the lion, but I am still not sure who will be the third king cat. Watch this space to find out!

Work In Progress shot 1:

Work In Progress shot 2:

Work In Progress shot 3:

Final: “We Three Kings part I: Tiger”

I’d love to know what you think of him!

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Two new breed portraits have now been added to the Dogs gallery, a Shiba Inu and another Shar-Pei (I just can’t resist wrinkles!). Both of these are color pencil/acrylic on drafting film.

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shiba-inu,

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