UPDATE July 2008: This website and blog is no longer current.  Please visit my updated Animal Fine Art and Photography website at http://michellewrighton.com

Where on earth has this year gone?  I can’t believe it has been so long since I updated this blog, so much has happened since my last post, I can’t even begin to remember all of it…the last few months of last year were filled with firstly our new baby (Taj a Border Collie), then the remainder was pretty much taken over with numerous hospital trips, docotrs visits and multiple surgeries for my poor hubby who suffered a severe injury and then re-currence of his medical conditions (he was home for Christmas which was a relief!)  And 2008, well so far its gone past in a blur of activity, ongoing illness and the unexpected addition of another bundle of fluff (yup another Border Collie, Trinity).

As a result of other commitments and general stress of life, I managed very little art until just recently, and I am trying to get the last few commissions finished as soon as possible.  Then I will be taking on fewer commissions for at least the short term future, I feel that I really need to focus on my own artwork for a while, as well as complete more piece in my Best of Breed series.  Unfortunately, like many pet portrait artists, many commissions that I have done are for pets that have past away, and the reference photos are really not suitable to create my style of highly detailed artwork, so I am looking forward to doing more work (including pet portraits) using my own reference material.

As I have started using mediums other than pencil in the last few years (pastels, acrylic and now oil paints), as well as photography, pencilportraits as a domain name is no longer completely relevant to my artwork, so I am (well my hubby is) in the process of re-designing a new website which will become my main website at http://michellewrighton.com

I don’t know about others, but when I get overwhelmed by the number of things that I have to do, I kind of go into meltdown and can’t achieve anything:(  So to cut down on maintenance time so that I can actually achieve some goals, I will be streamlining my web presence into the main website and have imported my blog over there.  This blog will remain here as there are many links and blog directory listings pointed to it, but this will be the last post here.

The new website is still under major construction, but please update your bookmarks, blogrolls and feeds - I do have a number of new artwork to show over the next few weeks, and I’d love to know what everyone thinks of the new site (bearing in mind it is still under construction!).

Cheers

Michelle

I have just opened a Gallery on Imagekind, a US based print on demand service that allows you to purchase fine art prints from as little as $12.74US for prints which can be customized and ordered with millions of combinations of frames, museum quality papers, canvas types, and sizes.

Giclee Technology

Giclee is a form of fine art printing which is superior to any previous form of inkjet printing. Giclee is a French word that means a spray of liquid, which possibly derived from the word “gicleur” meaning “nozzle” or “to squirt.”

The giclee printing system allows a precise level of color representation and ImageKind offers eight different paper types and two different canvas types that are widely used in the visual art world for prints and paintings, look tremendous, and will last for years.

Examples of framed ImageKind prints:

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This is a small selection of the merchandise printed with my artwork and photography available in my giftshop at CafePress.

If you are commissioning a portrait of your favourite pet, the completed portrait can also be made available for purchase on the items in my GiftShop at CafePress at no extra charge.

Coffee Mugs and Tile Boxes

Mouse Mats and Throw Pillows

Framed Prints and Badges

Calenders and Wall Clocks

Journals and a variety of clothing styles

Click to return to my Pet Portraits & Wildlife Art Home

A variety of wall art, greeting cards and t-shirts featuring my art and photography, is also available in my RedBubble Gallery. Purchases can be made in different currencies (USD, Euro, GBP, AUD) and shipped shipped worldwide.

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animal lover,

RedBubble now offers worldwide shipping and can handle different currencies - USD, Euro, GBP, AUD!

Currently RedBubble offers giftcards, wall art including laminated prints, mounted, canvas and framed to order prints, as well as high quality t-shirts. Here are a few examples of the items that can be purchased with my artwork and photography.

Gift Cards

Laminated Prints

Framed Prints in choice of colours and styles

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Click to return to my Pet Portraits & Wildlife Art Home

To purchase a variety of wall art, greeting cards and t-shirts featuring my art and photography, Please visit my RedBubble Gallery. Purchases can be made in different currencies (USD, Euro, GBP, AUD) and shipped shipped worldwide.

A variety of wall art, gift ware and apparel featuring my artwork is available in my
GiftShop at CafePress.

RedBubble.com is a new Australian online Art Gallery and Creative Community where you can purchase high quality prints and t-shirts with artwork, photography and digital imagery submitted by a gallery full of Australian artists.

I have recently set up my own gallery at RedBubble so that I can offer prints of some of my artwork and photography for sale. I will also be able to offer prints and t-shirts (and other products as they become available) of commissioned art to my clients.

Please click here to visit my RedBubble Gallery.

I only have a couple of images available for sale right now, but will be adding more as soon as I have a chance to re-scan images at a higher resolution than I use for display on my website gallery.

At the moment it is only for deliveries within Australia, but I am sure that in time, Red Bubble will expand to include many more items that will be available for purchase worldwide.

I have contemplated opening a store at Cafepress for a long time, and once I have my RedBubble gallery up and running I will probably look into Cafepress again.

Michelle

Subscribe to this feed Animal Art By Michelle

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Pet portraits Home

The combination of soft pastels and velour paper is quickly becoming my preferred medium and support for animal artwork, and I thought it would be good to provide some information about pastels as a Fine Art medium.

Pastels are pure finely ground pigments that are rolled or shaped into sticks using a soft binder to hold the particles together.  The pigments used to create pastel sticks are the same pigments used to create all coloured art mediums including oil and acrylic paints.  Pastels as a Fine Art medium have been used for hundreds of years by many of the Masters, including Maurice Quentin de La Tour, Degas, Manet, Toulouse-Lautrec, Whistler, Cassatt and Matisse among many others. 

Although some people refer to them as ‘chalk’ pastels, this really is a misnomer as pastels are not anything like the chalk sticks you will find in a classroom - nor do they only come in soft light ‘pastel’ colours, they do in fact come in many vibrant colours 

According to Answers ”pigment applied with pastel does not change in colour value, the final effect can be seen immediately. Pastel remains on the surface of the paper and thus can be easily obliterated unless protected by glass or a fixative spray of glue size or gum solution. When pastel is applied in short strokes or linearly, it is usually classed as drawing; when it is rubbed, smeared, and blended to achieve painterly effects, it is often regarded as a painting medium.”

There are several types of pastels available to artists as defined by Answers:

Soft pastels — This is the most widely used form of pastel. The sticks have a higher portion of pigment and less binder, resulting in brighter colors.

Hard pastels — These have a higher portion of binder and less pigment, producing a sharp drawing material that is useful for fine details. These can be used with other pastels for drawing outlines and adding accents.

Pastel pencils — These are pencils with a pastel lead. They are useful for adding fine details.

Oil Pastels - These have a soft, buttery consistency and intense colors. They are slightly more difficult to blend than soft pastels, but do not require a fixative.

Water-soluble pastels — These are similar to soft pastels, but contain a water-soluble component, such as glycol. This allows the colors to be thinned out using a water wash.

Personally I work mostly with soft pastels, with a few hard pastels and pencils for final line work, as the softness is very suitable for creating believeable, almost touchable animal fur.

Finally, pastel artwork (with the exception of art that is mostly line work) is generally referred to as paintings rather than drawings, and due to the delicate nature of pastel paintings, it is very important that they are cared for properly and framed in the correct manner, with an acid free mat and behind glass so that they can be enjoyed for many years to come.

Hahnemuhle Pastel Paper is produced in Germany using inert synthetic fibres on an acid free backing sheet.  This beautiful paper actually feels like velour fabric, and because of the nap (long fibres) it holds most pastels very well.  Of the soft pastels that I use, I choose the harder ones (if that makes sense) as some of the more softer brands are more delicate when used on velour paper. This velour paper comes in a range of colours that are all lightfast (so they are resistant to fading) and they all have acid free backing which prevents yellowing over time.

So there you have it, pastels and velour paper, my new favourite medium and support for animal artwork!

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This is the latest piece I have been working on, an acrylic landscape painting created in a modern minimalist style on gallery wrapped chunky canvas. This painting developed quite differently from my original inspiration, so differently in fact that I initially started painting purple clouds! I am quite pleased with the way this one is coming along, as it was the strong contrasts in the light and darks of a desert sunset that I wanted to capture, and in particular I wanted to achieve this with rather bold brush strokes (considering the size of the canvas) and some pallette knife work for added texture. After looking at this piece for several days I am contemplating whether or not to further lighten some of the area around the sun, and some of the reflections in the middle of the painting.

One of the things that I am finding rather surprising with the modern, minimalist, abstract/contemporary styles that I am experimenting with at the moment is just how long they take to complete to my staisfaction - simple and less detailed definitely does not necessarily equate to less time to create, and I can definitely say that I have a new found respect for artists who work in these styles!

“Desert Sunset”, Acrylic on gallery wrapped canvas, 2006

Right side view

Left side view

Cheers

Michelle

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This is the first floral acrylic painting I have done, of a tropical Bird of Paradise that I have growing in my front yard (I have a ‘brown’ thumb so its lucky this poor plant is still alive:). I really love the striking colours in this tropical flower, which is actually a native plant of South Africa and is also known as a Strelitzia.

This piece was definitely experimental, and a lesson in completing the background first - originally I had the flower backlit with a studio style background but I couldn’t achieve the halo lighting effect that I was visualizing so settled on a more abstract background.

The first image shows the whole painting, but after playing around with it in my graphics program I think for framing I prefer the closer crop of the second image. Overall I am happy with it, but at this stage I’m not sure if it needs more glazing or if it is ready to spray with gloss varnish so I will leave it for a couple of days and then take another look at it.

Above: Full painting Below: Cropped

“Bird of Paradise”, 8″x11″ Acrylic on canvas

More information on growing this beautiful tropical plant can be found on the Tropical gardening website.

Michelle

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In an effort to streamline things and hopefully be slightly more productive with my time, I have transfered most of my available artwork to Art ByUs (ABU) including ACEO’s and some of my sterling silver jewellery items (I do have some additional jewellery that I will also be adding there later).

I will still be listing a few items on Ebay from time to time, but most likely only the pieces that I create as part of the ‘theme’ challenges that happen from time to time (some weekly, some monthly) on the different Ebay Artists groups that I belong to, such as this acrylic painting that was part of the April ‘Spring’ theme organised by the Small Format Artists Ebay Group. This painting is 4″x4″ acrylic on canvas and is titled ‘Tall Poppies”.

To find other artwork on Ebay created by other artists as part of the ‘Spring’ Theme week, simply search Ebay for “SPRING theme week SFA”.

Michelle

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