Christmas is coming - Do you want a gift with WOW factor?

Your pet is only with you for a short time - keep them with you always in an heirloom portrait!

For your convenience I now accept Mastercard , Visa and American Express

Now is a great time to organise that portrait you've been thinking about.
After being flat out creating portraits all year I've finally caught up and have a starting spot vacant now!
I can start your portrait this month and with my many options you can decide to have a larger portrait or have it earlier!
I accept Mastercard , Visa , American Express and Paypal + laybyes.

Each portrait is a custom shape to best suit your photo!

My latest 2 memorial portraits- Oscy and Bella.
I make a custom shape for each portrait.
This gives the best result for each portrait - a larger face for me to bring them to life with minimum background.
Both are 30 x 40cm image size custom framed portraits but they are different shapes.

Have your portrait sooner! I accept cards and Paypal

Did you know I accept Mastercard , Visa and American express over the phone and at markets?
I also accept Paypal.
 

Have your portrait earlier .
 

Book now for special gifts or treat yourself to a lifetime of treasured memories!

The creation of Amanda and Ringo's portrait

Amanda was after a portrait that was a bit different. She explained that other than when they are at the track greyhounds are really quite  sedentary. She wanted something that showed Ringo's enthusiasm for running with his tongue hanging out and ears flapping.

 I went to the training track and set myself up inside to take photos of Ringo as he raced past.
 It wasn't easy! He was great and obliged by doing his part well  speeding back and forth as asked but the track is only c 10' wide and he was flying! Even on sports setting he was just a flash.  I took 100's of photo and some video.

After looking through heaps of photos I decided that one with Amanda in it had promise and the scope to come up with an interesting portrait. Amanda was a bit shy about being in the portrait and really wanted Ringo to be the star so I used a style that suggested her more and made Ringo the focus.

 Amanda and Ringo

 c 60 x 70cms framed size

 Custom framed oil

The original photo

The chosen reference photo  has potential but it's blurry and is an unflattering photo of Amanda. Still I like the way they are both having fun and are focused on each other. I feel we can capture the feel of their connection and the  day using  this one as the concept.

After playing around in photo shop to get rid of a lot of wasted space and make Ringo the star I came up with this idea. This stage often takes a long time but is the most important.
It doesn't matter how good you are as an artist without a good design and idea the portrait will never reach it's potential.

 I've also used some new more flattering closeup photos of Amanda's face. It's not the sharpest reference photos but I had good closeups of Ringo's head at a similar angle to help me.

Luckily I had taken lots of photos including head shots and closeup full body ones so we had a range of options to refer to.

  I wanted the portrait to be colourful and have impact. There wasn't much scope to change much with Amanda or Ringo so I upped the colours of the landscape so the portrait would still look realistic but have oomph!

 Amanda's face reference- the top one was mostly for the angle of the light on her clothes - I ended up toning down the shadow on her face as it just didn't look right.

 Clear shot to help me. I wanted Amanda to be secondary to Ringo but still a good likeness- just a little more expressionistic or suggested.

Below- early stages with the underpainting in acrylic.

Starting to paint the details in the under painting.

 Starting on the oil- Ringo roughly done.

 It's a largish portrait ( 40 x 50cms) so it take a while to have it all start to come together. The whole portrait needs to be roughly covered with Oil paint so I can start to compare things and refine and bring it all together.

 I usually start with the dark tones then the middle tones then the light bits last. 

Starting on Amanda's face in Oil.

 Amanda roughly done in Oil.
Below - - not the best photo due to sheen on the painting due to it being wet. Here I'm introducing some bright colours in the ground to give impact and depth - oranges and yellow come forward while blues and greens recede. This use of colour helps make the painting more 3D than a photo.

Below-  More finished off - extra shades of green in the trees and foreground finished a bit more. I still have to  finish Amanda's face and there is still a long way to go  but I can see how things are going.

 Amanda's face a little more finished - I ended up refining her face more  but not a bad start - nice and suggested but still getting a likeness and happy expression.

 Roughly completed along with the poop bag! 
I ended up deciding the painting needed a bit more colour on Amanda to bring it all together . I changed the lead to red to tie it in with the rest of the portrait.  I checked with Amanda and she didn't mind.

 Here you can see some of the extra photos I used to help. 
A portrait like this is quite complicated and takes a lot longer to create but it gives you the best portrait!
 It's a lot harder for me as I don't have one photo to refer to and check I have a good likeness.

In the later stages I added more subtle reds in the background to brighten the portrait and tie it all in. I decided Ringo's front legs were too short so I lengthened them, changed the colour of the lead and did many other tweaks.

 Amanda now has a great record of her happy days with Ringo at the track. Something to treasure long after he's gone!

 The finished framed portrait showing you the size.

 Detail - it's hard for photos to show the impact of larger portraits. Your eyes can take in the details but  a photo taken far enough away to get the whole portrait loses the effect .

The Lambton Park demo painting of Aphrodites framed.

I've finally got around to framing Aphrodites and she looks stunning! She is for sale and will also be going in the Dobell Art show next week.

She is beautifully framed with a cream inner wooden slip with gold line and a crackled gold outer frame.

For Sale

Freedom

 69 x 70cms framed size Oil

$2300 AUD ( Free delivery)

  

Cec's portrait continued- acrylic underpainting finished

 I'm now starting to finish the rest of the under painting his shirt and background. I wanted a light background as I think of  Cec and the Samaritan's as a beacon of hope for a lot of people.

I also wanted to to set the scene by including the Samaritan logo or a suggestion of it .

 Shirt roughly started , logo in place , background shade done..

  Now to start doing the Oil colour over the top. 

After spending so long getting his face pretty accurate I decided to have a play doing his shirt and the background first before ruining the lovely facial underpainting...lol's

 I want Cec's expression and character to be the most important thing in the portrait. 

I knew I wouldn't be able to play around much with his features so I had some fun suggesting his shirt! I didn't want it too tight with every detail spelled out, rather that people should get the general impression.

.

 

I had fun with his shirt! I'm very happy with it at the moment. 

I don't want to get bogged down in detail and end up with it being boring.

 

Now to see how the background colour I had planned looks. This will affect how I do his face colour so best to do it first.

 Argh! Now the scary part..It always looks worse before it comes good and I hated to wreck that underpainting.

 Oh well I plunged straight in - it can't get any worse now so stop worrying! 

 

Above- The ugly stage.. laying in some broad colours / tones as a base. I don't want his teeth to be the focus so I'll play them down later. I want your attention to go to his eyes and expression.

 At least all his face is now covered so I can compare tones and colours. I haven't got a likeness yet and there will be a lot of back and forth and fine tuning before I'm satisfied! I'm playing around with colours..

 All roughly covered now to continue with his face.

 I was hoping to use quite a few colours but 

The reference photo was taken in flat lighting with his face in the shade. That made it very difficult as I found if I  increased the contrast things just didn't look right! 

I had my life portraits next to the portrait as I had hoped to keep it more painterly like them. They all have spotlights on the model which gives you much more scope for impact and colour.

If I do an entry for next years exhibition I'll use more dramatic lighting. 

 Having said that a more conservative style used with this portrait  suited the calm kind feel I wanted to achieve.

 

Above - This is one of the stages where I decided to add some orange / green colours for some more zap in Cec's face. I found the colours just didn't sit right with the rest of the portrait and his complexion looked a bit green.

I chased my tail a lot with this portrait and ended up just staying with pink, red colours and upping the highlights as much as I could. 

 

 About this time I realised his chin needed to be moved over more to the right. Argh!

 Not a good time for major surgery..lol's 

 

 Here I've gone back to more pinkish colours and the portrait is holding together better.

I made a lot of changes but you probably can't see them in a photo. His head was too high so I chopped off a bit of height , made his neck thinner on the LHS, changed eye and nose shapes subtly and played with the highlights. Getting there..I also lightened his eye colour and added some extra zap.

Original reference photo

The completed portrait 

 Cec 

 50 x 60cms 

 Oil on gallery wrap Canvas 

 I feel I have captured the kind caring look I aimed for.

The creation of Cec Shevels portrait

The reference photo

The portrait so far

Below - the stages- 
 
I did a really rough grid over the photo + the canvas just to ensure that I didn't end up with his head too close to the edges etc. I usually do it by eye in portrait sessions from a model. As I only have a few weeks to create this portrait I don't want to have to go back and move things because they are too close to the edges etc.. 
I also roughly put in the angle of his nose and the height of his eyes.The tilt of his head is really important for the expression and it's easy to miss this.

 Early stages - rough as guts! 
Most artist don't show you these ugly stages but I feel it makes it more interesting. When I first started painting I would get scared at this stage  as it looks so bad! Now I just have fun as I know it can only get better.
Just trying to get the rough placement of each feature- measuring and comparing distances and angles as I go.
His eyes are very roughly placed.

 

Below-  I've realised his eyes were too large and the wrong shape so I've fixed.

 I'm constantly refining and improving things. I haven't done his mouth yet just marked a rough angle and width.

 Below- his eyes are a bit more refined and the tones on his face a bit more finished.

It doesn't matter if the painting isn't in colour - if the tones ( shade of dark and light ) + shapes are right it will look like Cess.

 His mouth suggested.

  Cec has very unique smile - I need to capture that but at the same time tone down his teeth  a little to keep it flattering and natural.

Getting there..
I'm getting a bit frustrated with the acrylic paint as it dries darker than when you put it on whereas Oil stays the same. I'd get the tone right in the wet paint but once it dried it would look less contrasty and drab- grr. 
After fussing for a while I've decided  I'll fix that with the Oil.  
I don't want to spend too much time at this stage as it will all be covered anyway. I do want to get the proportions right and get a likeness though..

Just about good enough for the likeness at this stage.
I'll start on his shirt and background next. I wanted to do the hardest bit first while I was inspired!

I'm afraid I'm not very good at selfies  lol's!
 This is just to give you an idea of the size. 
The portrait will be a 50 x 60cms Oil on gallery wrap canvas