Contest Winner Portrait Complete!

Well, certainly I'm not back at full speed here, which I'm sure most of you have noticed. Though accepting portraits and design work, I won't be back blogging again at my usual pace until sometime after May 20th (moving day!).

I wanted to share the portrait that was completed for Shelley, the winner of my portrait contest.

This is beautiful Maggie, the black and tan coonhound. A gorgeous dog, with tons of expression in that sweet face. Though Maggie is no longer with us, Shelley still deeply cherishes her, and this is what she had to say about the portrait:

"Wow, that is amazing.  You do beautiful work.  It brings tears to my eyes.  You were able to keep the soft expression in her eyes.  She has real doe eyes, and I can see them so clearly."

This portrait was great to work on as it gave me the opportunity to work with a lot of darker shades, great for depth, shadows and highlights. Congratulations once again Shelley on the contest win!

Done and Done

Ah, the Christmas portraits are complete, shipped and delivered, what a wonderful feeling. These two were a blast to create, with loads of personality in the fuzzy faces, and great reference photos from the clients.

I hope that these two pieces do justice to the beloved animals in them. I will say, I am quite pleased with how they turned out, and am looking forward to getting started on the next one.

 Note: there isn't a line through the original, I had to scan Tequila's portrait in two separate pieces

I will be officially announcing the contest for a complimentary 5"x7" pencil portrait after the holidays are over, so stay tuned!

In the mean time, I hope everyone has a safe, happy and healthy holiday season. Here's to a white Christmas, with snow melting the next day and temperatures in the low 20's for the rest of the winter. Is that too positive? Is there such thing as being too positive? Well, one can only hope.

All the best!!

Another Sneak Peak...

These April showers better bring some May flowers, or I'm going to be sorely disappointed with all of this rain. Once again, the sky's open and the afternoon is full of drops from the heavens. Although, I've been noticing that the temperature is slowly rising...odd
Another piece of the puzzle, a quick look at a portion of another piece from "The Dogs of Moron". This guy, as seen in the photos from a previous post, had what looked like mange, was very scraggly and seemed not to have a human friend anywhere in sight, but sported some of the kindest eyes I've ever seen on a dog.

More to come as the pieces progress.

Completed...and given!

This piece was created as a gift for my sister and her new husband, who were just married last week in Cuba (March 4, 2009).

We agreed upon no gifts...but I had to do something. I wanted it to be inexpensive but different, something a little special. That's when I can up with the portrait idea and, well the rest is history.

The portrait is a 9"x12" graphite pencil created on Strathmore Bristol smooth 100lb stock, accentuated with a solid black wood frame.

They seemed extremely pleased to receive it, and I wish them the best of luck and love in their upcoming married years!