Hello! As per usual I’m in disbelief at how fast the month has disappeared… I read the other day that September is actually just over two months away and I’ve no idea how that is actually possible.
Anyway - that’s not what I’ve sat down to write about this afternoon! I have some brand new work, at long last, that I’m excited to share with you. It’s been a bumpy ride of a year so far, especially with an unplanned house-move in the mix. We have *almost* finished sorting things out in the new house and I’ve got some time and space to focus on making work again.
I finally painted the scene of Jeffers in the garden sniffing the air, and I’m really pleased with how it’s turned out. This is a rare feeling for me! I have been sketching it and thinking about how I’d paint it for months though, so I guess that probably helped in getting the result I was hoping for.
It did take a few attempts - the first ones never really go to plan but it’s always necessary to get through this stage to get to a piece you’re happy with. I’d chosen the wrong paper and the paint wasn’t nice to work with.
I ended up reverting back to my usual hot-pressed watercolour paper and this was much better. I do love how it looks at the sketch/outline stage too.
The painting is based on a photo I took when we were on holiday in Argyll a few years ago. It was the last morning of our trip and I sat in the garden with Jeffers before getting the car loaded up to go home, enjoying the peace & quiet and all the green, whilst Jeffers sat sniffing the air. It’s a really lovely memory.
I am excited to have this available as print in my shop as of now! It’s currently at a special price on pre-order (this will help me to figure out how many to order from the printers). It’ll be available at this rate until 1st July then it’ll go up to £18.
And, I have also released two mini-prints, taken from sketches of Jeffers. I love how these turned out as well, so I thought I’d see how they do as prints.
It’s good to finally have some new work to send out into the world.
A mini June round-up
The rest of this month has been mostly about getting settled into the new house. At the beginning of the month I finally sorted out my studio, and we’ve been getting the garden sorted out. We built our shed and I’ve been busy growing sunflowers, fruit and vegetables (and battling with slugs). It’s a bit of a mini garden at the moment, using the raised beds that were here already. We have so much space, and lots of grass, so we are planning what we can do with it all.
Last week I put a call-out on instagram for dog models to use for more new work I’m planning. I was expecting about 10 submissions, if any, but I got almost 70. It was really lovely to have so many people sending photos of their beautiful dogs. It’s been a pretty quiet year for me so far for commissions, and I realised just how much I miss being sent photos of precious pets regularly. It’s really the best part of being a pet portrait artist!
So now I have such an incredible resource for making even more new work, which is a million times better than having to rely on stock photography for references. I’m eager to get started on painting - although I don’t really have a fully formed plan for what I’m doing yet.
I’ll be taking part in P in the Park next month, so as usual I am pulling things together for that at the very last minute! I had planned to have lots of new work ready by now, but we had to move house just when I’d hoped to get started on that. But here we are - I’m just finding my feet and there is still some time left… Hopefully I will have more new pieces to share here very soon!
I’ve been completely out of the habit of writing here again, and that is also on my list of things to get back on top of in the coming months. I do have a few ideas tucked away, so there will be more to come.
