I make a special pilgrimage to this house in a village nearby most years to see these amazing hollyhocks that grow in the garden and along the front wall.

This is called a ‘tray-frame’. Basically the painting is mounted on brackets just below the surface of the frame with a small ‘shadow gap’ left around the edge of the painting. Here I am posing with my muse who looks very proud of himself indeed!

My submission for ‘sky arts portrait artist of the week’.  This week’s sitter was the Journalist & BBC presenter ‘Clive Myrie’. Over 1700 people painted him on Sunday morning via a live stream on ‘Sky arts’.

Lula,  I tried to work loosely here, finding the colours in her black fur. Such a lovely reference photo with the bluebells to her left and having her looking off into the distance. She looks gentle and wise.

The client wanted it to be BIG- twice as big as anything I have ever done before! Not only that, the ‘dog’ part of it that I am comfortable painting covers about 5% of the surface area and is largely in shadow! And sunsets? Well previously I’d done 2! 

This one was a bit tricky with such dramatic lighting and a rear end to invent given that Faydo’s partner in ‘crime and wall antics’ was exiting stage left, as the photo was taken.

Painting as a ‘wildcard’ at Winston Churchill’s family home ‘Chartwell House’ in Kent....The show has just aired on the Sky Arts’ which is now free for all to view on Freeview channel 11 (season 6 episode 4).

For anyone considering having a painting done of a black animal- this is a great example of how to photograph them…with the light shining to one side of their face/body. A lovely composition too i thought.

With this one I felt that I had to establish the light and shade early on- I needed to make this painting soft yet intense - to make you think - ‘I wonder what she’s looking at?’

It was Ralphs lucky day when he got rescued from the dogs home aged 12. I noticed there was lots of clover in the grass in the foreground so I’ve included just one in the painting, with 4 leaves - can you spot it??

I calculated recently that in 11 months I have painted 59 animal portraits and 7 human ones!

Isn’t this little lady just as cute as a button! I was really excited to paint the lemon yellow door of the ‘Citroen 2cv’ as well - that chrome wing mirror makes it for me!

I’m loving Pepper’s pose here- it’s like a doggy-style ‘Saturday Night Fever’!

Biscuit’s owner was keen to keep the ball in the picture as Biscuit is never without it! However it at odds with the rest of the painting…so i’ve put my ‘artistic licence’ to good use in moving it and making it yellow so that it matched the colour scheme a little more!

A memorial painting of a much loved companion. It’s nice to think that these little paintings bring people such joy, I hope that when they look at them they allow themselves to relive the happy times they spent with their pet.

To you, the viewer, it is a picture of a happy dog…me - I see a thousand tiny decisions…each mark I make I am choosing- the colour the angle and the direction. Painting can be far from relaxing sometimes - every mark you make has the potential to make or break a painting.

Compare the painting to the original photo in the post and spot the very big difference!

I’d love to have great images to work with every time- but it doesn’t always work like that! These pictures were taken about 30 years ago so there is no chance of getting any better ones!

Trying to capture that ‘winning smile’ and keeping some of the edges loose and blurry to suggest excitement and movement.

Tipper looks like one of those dogs that seems to understand everything you’re saying…don’t you just wish they could talk!