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 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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A variety of wall art, gift ware and apparel featuring my artwork is available in my
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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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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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A variety of wall art, greeting cards, giftware and t-shirts featuring this image is now available through my RedBubble Gallery and myGiftShop at CafePress.

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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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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 worldwide.

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

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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I cannot believe how quickly 2007 is flying by! I have quite a few blog entries sitting in my ‘draft’ folder waiting to be finished off so that I can upload them, but life just seems to keep getting in the way! Hopefully by the end of August things will have settled down a little bit around here! Of course, when I finally get to upload them they are going to be out of order, so I might have to rationalize and give some of them a miss!

Meanwhile, to add to my wildlife art portfolio, this is the second piece in the ‘We Three Kings’ series, a square format triptych of three of the big cats, the first was the Tiger, this work in progress is of the second in the series, the lion. I am still undecided on the third one because I would like to do a snow leopard, a cheetah and a jaguar but I can’t decide which one to do first!

After trying drafting film as a support for my colour pencil work, I think I have found the perfect combination of medium and support to suit my style and technique. It is rather tricky to work with initially (definitely different to any other support I have tried) but I am particularly pleased with the vibrancy and luminosity that colour pencils have on the drafting film.

These photos were taken on my easel to avoid camera flash so they are at a bit of an angle.

8″x8″ with a variety of artist quality colour pencils.

Prints and gift items with this image will be available from my RedBubble Gallery and my Cafe Press Gift Shop when the painting is completed.

Michelle

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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 worldwide.

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

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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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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

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