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

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Pet portraits Home

I’ve managed to grab a few hours here and there to get some more work done on Poppy.

Basically just adding more thin layers and creating depth in the fur using paynes grey, ultramarine, burnt umber and some reddish brown mixes.

Also adding more thin glazes to the grass to blend the background, adding individual blades of grass and flowers stalks and a few flower buds using different greens mixed with some of the darker paint used in the dogs fur.

I’ve also started to add to the flowers to create the shadows and highlights that will give them form.  The flowers are proving to be the biggest challenge, partly because I am working from several different reference photos because I don’t know what poppies look like in detail and because none of the photos have the flowers as I want them, I am basically making it up as I go:)

In the image above, I’ve started to add the darkest paint to turn Poppy into a black dog.  The trick here is to avoid making her look like a big black blob!  The highlights in her eyes really make her come alive on the canvas.

In this last photo, Poppy is finally looking like a Black Labrador, even though she still needs a fair bit more work.  And I think she needs some liposuction on those lips, so I will have to post another update, and hopefully the final image, when she has had that necessary face lift, and had her whiskers added!

Michelle

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Pet portraits Home

I have done a bit more modelling of Poppy’s face and have started on her eyes. It takes many thin glazes (layers) of paint of various shades of browns and golds to achieve the luminous liquid look of animal eyes, but having made a start on her eyes, Poppy is starting to come to life.

In this next progress shot, I have done a bit more work on the field and have started to add in the red poppy flowers. I’ve also continued with the modelling of her face and started the basic underpainting on her body. Obviously the underpainting is just blocking in shapes (shadows and lights) to create the form of her body before the detail starts to go on in the top layers. I’ve also added some purple to the paynes grey to tie the background in with the dog’s fur, to give depth to the darkest shadows and to start creating some of the red highlights that are apparent in the reference photo of the black labrador retriever that I am using. Thats a handy co-incidence that will work well to tie in the colours in the dog with the background:)

This painting is in a very, very ugly stage that seems to be lasting forever. As much as it looks like it now, this will not be an abstract painting of a dog when it is finished. LOL - at least I hope not!

I am working this painting in the same way that many oil painters use - multiple thin glazes of colour, so it is pretty time consuming. This has taken about 16 hours so far and I would say has at least that many more to go.

Please subscribe to this feed Animal Art By Michelle  if you would like to be notified when Poppy is updated.

Michelle

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This is a painting I am working on in between commissions for my own portfolio - it might seem a bit strange but I have very few pieces of my own artwork to show clients because most of the work I have done over the past few years have been sold.  Which of course is a good thing, but I would also like to enter a few competitions and can’t do that when I keep selling everything, so hopefully over the next few months I can add a few pieces (at least six) to my own collection here and there. 

I’d also like to experiment with a much looser style and try out some more landscapes if I get a chance.  To help keep me motivated to achieve these goals, I’ve joined in the Australian Art Forum’s Winter Challenge with will run from 1 May to 1 September.

It seems that most artists that paint with a high degree of realism tend to produce  pet portraits with traditional landscapes or portrait backgrounds, and those artists that paint in a bold contemporary style usually don’t paint in highly realistic detail.  I would like to pursue a slightly different direction with some of my artwork, although I don’t think I will ever move away from my realistic and ‘up close and personal’ style, I want to explore combining that with modern contemporary backgrounds.   Bright bold background colours and landscapes full of beautiful saturated colours that border on the real/surreal/hyper real.  Will it work?  Can it be done?  LOL, who knows, but I am sure it will be fun to find out:)

This one is likely to take a while to complete as I am fitting it in between commissions.  ‘Poppy’ is 16″x20″ on gallery wrapped canvas.  This is a big experiment as acrylic is a new medium that I am teaching myself how to use.  The thing I love about being self-taught is that you can try new and unusual techniques because no ‘expert’ teacher has deemed there is a right way and a wrong way. 

Personally, I think as long as you use good quality artist’s materials, you can’t go far wrong by simply experimenting to find out what works (or dosn’t) for you:)

So here goes my experiment with ‘Poppy’.  I’ve deliberately chosen to offset the black labrador to the right hand side of the canvas, and to use a landscape orientation rather than portrait.  My vision for this one is to have the dog sitting a a field of red poppies. So I have to learn how to paint flowers as well, which will be fun:)

The first image shows my sketch of the Poppy, and the beginning of the background field, which has been created with many thin glaze layers of paint which has taken about 3.5 hours so far.

The next progress shot shows how I have started to block in the main shapes (shadows and highlights) in the underpainting using various dilutions of paynes grey.

More work on the underpainting and additional glazes on the background.

Stay tuned for the next updates on Poppy!

Michelle

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Pet portraits Home

This is my latest painting of a gorgeous rescue Greyhound “Teddy”.  Rendering his fur realistically was a bit of a challenge.  I will probably leave this for a few days then make some minor adjustments before varnishing it.

This one is acrylic on gallery wrapped canvas.

Michelle

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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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