The creation of Anne Marie's 2.30hr practise portrait

 Anne Marie

 c 25 x 30cms 

 oil on canvas

Here's another of my practise portraits from a model.

I do these for myself so I play around a bit and don't finish them off as much although we don't have enough time to finish them much anyway! My usual portraits take weeks or months  to complete!

 I usually use a piece of good quality canvas and just tape it to the board. that way they are compact to store. they can be framed at a later date . 
If you like any of these practise portraits they are all available for sale. Contact me.

 

Above - I had to laugh at this stage as the drawing reminded me of the cartoon figure Garfield the cat!

No worries I know she will improve!

At this stage I'm just trying to get the proportions correct and get a likeness in the acrylic under painting . Once I am pretty happy with the likeness I then come back and go over it with Oil colour.

Above  - Getting more accurate. This is probably at about the 1hr mark..I'm pretty happy with this stage. Sometimes I'm tempted to leave them at this stage but I need practise at finishing them off. Unfortunately I know they will always look worse for a while after this  before they all come together - usually in the last panicked 1/2hr! lol's

 Starting to use Oil colour. I've roughly done the dark background.She had lovely hair that was lit nicely and I wanted to do her hair first so I wanted a dark background to show her lighter hair off well.

 

Going through the ugly stage - starting to fill in the flesh colours.

 

Starting to do her hair

 Hair roughly completed!

 Getting there.. more work on her face.

Now her neck- I'm on the home run. I was running out of time now so I did a very quick paint of her amazing clothing .

Done! I'm pretty happy with the portrait.I feel I have captured something of her quirky character. I like working from life as during the process of interesting with the model something of their character usually comes through in the portraits.

 In an ideal world I'd paint my pet portraits  from the actual pet rather than a photo. Unfortunately animals won't stay still long enough!

The memorial portrait of Max the Maine Coon cat

Here is where I was at before with the rough acrylic underpainting completed.

 

Here is the reference photo.  Max passed away at a young age and deteriorated rapidly once diagnosed with a tumour. We didn't have many photos of him . This was the clearest one we had.

 

A general photo of him

Here I'm starting to come back in with Oil and do his face.

I did his eyes early on and I liked them enough to not fiddle with them much except to soften his expression a little as I felt he looked a bit stern in the photo. You can't change the expression a lot because when a pet ' smiles' it's not just their mouth and eyes that change shape but their whole face.I can't guess the changes as it would be too hard to get it to look like them. 

Ideally we would have had a happy photo to start with but in memorial portraits that's not always possible. Make sure you take lots of flattering , sharp closeups of your pets as they grow! You never know what's around the corner.

Above - I'm starting to paint his mat after having roughly painted some colour through Max's coat. I wanted to get the overall colour scheme down so I could see how the planned mauve  background colour would look when I put it on. He used to love to sit on his mat on the kitchen bench and watch everything.

Here I have the background colour in place. Now I'll go back and finish off his fur colouring properly.

Adding more colour. This photo is a bit yellow although I do try and get as much colour into the portrait as I can while still having it look like Max. I adjust things as I go along.

The finished memorial portrait of

 Max

 40 x 50cms image size 

 Custom framed oil

Peter with his portrait of Max

 We also had an artist quality  reproduction of the portrait created . It will be a gift for the vets who helped out so much and grew really attached to him. 

 If you have family who love your pet as much as you I can now offer reproductions so they can enjoy a portrait too!

 

Talk to me about having your own special portrait created!

The finished painting of Tip - the demonstration painting from the Million Paws Walk

Tip 

c 30 x 40cms image size 

Custom framed Oil

I've framed Tip and fine tuned him.
I often fine tune each portrait once framed to make sure the framing is just right and gives a stunning portrait!
With Tip I adjusted the background with darker areas to balance him in the frame and lightened his face with some highlights and a few more flicks of wayward hair . Shelley said what she liked about the reference photo was it captured his windblown look and comb over.

I had a lovely day at the RSPCA Million Paws walk at Speers Point yesterday.

We were SO lucky! It rained most of Saturday , overnight and heavy rain as the organisers arrived to set up but then cleared to a perfect sunny day!
It's the first time they have been at Speers Point.It used to be at
Morpeth but outgrew the common.
It was very busy. There were many interesting people and dogs - some coloured poodles and a Staffy with a wig that looked like a lion- his owner had a spiked wig on. I would have loved to take some photos but I was very busy most of the day.
The day just flew and I met a lot of interesting people.

 Here are a few photos of the day.

I was painting a portrait of Tip the Sheltie. As usual I do an acrylic underpainting the opposite colour to what he will eventually be. I was a bit worried the TV cameras would arrive and take some footage of him when he was blue so hurried to change him to a more respectable colour! 

I needn't have worried as they didn't take any footage of me although they have before.

 Shelley and Meg bought Tip along for me to meet.

 

Painting success is all about how you hold your mouth..lol's

Ranger Sam -  When I saw the photo I was surprised at how tall he was ! ..or how short I am..

I usually wear glasses but take them off to paint so I got to look younger in the photos!

 

Early stages of Tip. I was covering  all the blue!

 

 A bit further along and I've done the tan colours on his face.

This is the stage I got at at the end of the day. I was pretty happy with him. Since bringing him home he looks less colourful so I'll zap up the colours bit and I need to finetune him , get him more accurate and get those last lifelike touches..

It was very enjoyable day.

Some of the dogs I met.

Ringo

Many dogs had fancy dress. the stall next to me had some great caps , coats and other things.

Come and see me paint - this Sunday 17th May Million Pawsa Walk and 31st May the rescheduled Hunter Arts Bazaar

Hi Everyone

 

I'll be painting at the RSPCA Million Paws Walk Against Animal Cruelty this Sunday May 17th at Speers point Park.

I'll be painting Tip the Sheltie.
 

Join in and raise money for a good cause. I'll be donating a discount voucher towards a portrait for the raffle.

Click the link for times , more details of the day and how you can join in at the Million Paws Walk

You don't have to go in the walk to come along and me and other doggy stalls. We will be at the main arena. Come and browse and watch!

Here is the original photo of Tip who I will be painting on Sunday.

Watch the blue painting turn into Tip!

Come along and say hello!

If you've been thinking of having a portrait created bring your photos along with you and I can have a look and see what can be done.

The Hunter Arts Bazaar that was postponed due to bad weather has been rescheduled for Sunday May 31st.

It will be from 10 - 3pm and I'll be painting another dog portrait - possibly Sookie the Pomeranian in Pastel.

It is in the grounds of the  Lake Macquarie Art Gallery at Booragul . The gallery has a great restaurant so make a day of it - see the Bazaar , the galleries latest exhibition and have lunch or a snack at the restuarant.

Then come back anbd see how far my portrait has progressed!

If I need to cancel either of these due to inclement weather I'll send out another of these emails early in the day and post on my Sue Linton Artist FB page.



Here is a photo from my 2013 stall there-



 Hope you can make it!
 Bye

Sue

 
Blog -http://suelintonartist.blogspot.com.au/
 Website - http://www.suelinton.com.au/