Friday, December 17, 2010

Trying a bit of a new techique

I don't usually do the smudgy thing with pictures, more prefer to work mainly with pencil strokes and maybe the odd smudging, but this one I did almost entirely shaped by a smudge stick and I must say, I'm impressed with the outcome.

Picture of foal and mare's muzzle, I'm giving it away as a Christmas gift, so no sales here.


Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Pet Portraits

Pet portraits are hard things, sometimes, because a lot of the time the picture is a digital snapshot where parts are in good definition and others are blurred out. Which means a lot of guess work and artistic license on my end.

They are also tricky as I have not spent an extensive amount of time around the animal, and have to, in the few hours I spend with a couple of photographs, capture both the personality and individuality of each animal. Some more expressive portraits make it easy, other plain ones make it hard. No one wants a portrait of some random dog or cat, they want THEIRS.

This becomes increasingly more important depending on the situation... for example, if the animal is deceased. Which is what I'm working with over 50% of the time.

Usually I add more detail in the fur and eyes in an attempt to bring the picture to life and give them more of a spark than the photograph provides me. The thing that makes the most difference is the eye. If I can create a lifelike, expressive eye, the other details I might have missed are usually forgiven because the eye of an animal is the most individual aspect.


This portrait I most recently completed is from FV Appaloosas. Thank you so much for your support, FV!