Bella Mia

New portrait post!

Recently I had the honor of painting Bella Mia, a beautiful Rottweiler. I've gotta say, I have a special place in my heart for Rotts. This was a fun portrait to paint! It is 8x10 inches painted in Acrylic.

Jedidiah's Golden Treasure

I'm a little mortified to suddenly realize that it has been over a year since my last post. I have had a busy year, but I really need to be a little more dedicated to my poor neglected blog. 

Anyway, here is my latest painting that I've been working on. It is a painting of Jed, my own Golden Retriever who passed away on April 25, 2012 at just 6 years old. He was my pride and joy. A beautiful, perfectly healthy boy. His death mystified the vets. Anyway, I have been meaning to pay him homage with his own painting. I didn't have any photos that really captured what I wanted in the painting, so out came my super ancient version of Photoshop (ps7 HA!) and I mashed a few pictures together until I got a result something like what I envisioned in my mind. (see photo below)

I have been working on this painting off and on for several weeks over Christmas break, and actually have more done on it that what is shown on the picture below. Frankly, I am more interested in blogging right now than taking more updated pictures of my work, downloading them to my computer, and then adjusting the colors until they somewhat resemble reality, so you will just have to wait for an update later on if you are dying to see the finished product. 

Don't worry. I will get you an update here soon enough. I pledge not to neglect this blog for such terribly long periods of time in the future.

Honey

"This is Honey. She is a three-legged therapy dog who visits nursing homes, hospitals, hospice homes, rehab centers, schools, day care facilities, and much more. She teaches people with and without special needs that being different is okay, and encourages others to overcome whatever challenges they may be facing. She is a rescue dog who came to us from an abusive home. Honey has added so much joy to so many lives! She is a Spitz mix."

Honey finished

Some semi-random stuff...

I'd say it's about time I updated my blog, so here you go.

 (Reference photo below)

Well I've finished another portrait. I don't have a name for this little guy, but I sure had fun painting him!
I recently had a little contest on my facebook page for working dogs, and will be giving away an 8x10 acrylic painting (like the one above) to the three winners. Below are pictures of the three winning dogs:

If you're interested in reading about the jobs these dogs do, visit my facebook page *here* and go to either the event "win a free 8x10 painting of your working dog" or the photo album with the same title. I can't wait to get started on these special dogs!

That's all I have for now. School has been keeping me pretty busy lately, but hopefully I won't continue to be so neglectful of my poor blog...after all, the semester is almost over! Yaaay!!

Sadie

This is a post about my latest commission, Sadie. As you can see, Sadie is an adorable, much loved little poodle, and my acrylic painting was ordered for an anniversary gift.

I got 4 really tiny camera phone pictures, and was asked to do an 8x10 painting. Now, I greatly appreciate any business, but please, if you're going to send pictures for me to do a portrait from, try to have at least one good quality picture. I can sometimes work from tiny pictures like these, but it makes my job a whole lot harder. 

 This last one (Directly below) is the one that was requested for the actual painting. Wonderful, considering it's the smallest and most blurry of all the pictures right? Not exactly, but don't get me wrong. Sadie is an adorable dog and I enjoyed painting her. Even if the result wasn't able to be a super detailed painting.

 Sketched:

 Mostly done, We were having some cushion problems:

 The cushion fixed, and Sadie finally finished:

Yellow chick + Yellow dog = Most adorable picture ever

This is Jed and his matching chicken:

Several days ago, this rather adorable chick was part of a magic show. The magician said he was going to show us where chickens came from, and proceeded to crack an egg into a metal pan. Then he sprayed lighter fluid all over the cracked egg, and lit it all on fire. He set that down and let it cook for a little while, and then put the lid on the pan, and quickly took it off again. There, flapping in the pan, was this adorable little chick. We somehow got lucky enough to bring it home and have since been quite entertained by it's "I own everything" personality.

New Portrait finished

I am pleased to introduce to you "Lexy and Oakly" a lovable Husky and Border Collie pair from (and now headed back to) Hampton VA! This is an 11x14 Colored Pencil drawing.

In the original photo, the husky wasn't really looking at the camera. The client wanted Lexy (the husky) to be looking more at the camera, so I did "a bit" of editing in my drawing...
This was the original photo:

 But I swapped heads with this picture of Lexy:

That's all for now...