What a treat it was to work this size- I enjoyed every brushstroke of this one! Food is a great way to get your animals attention and take a sneaky photo whilst they are concentrating on it.

It’s been a long time since I worked in Acrylics, their advantage is that they dry so quickly, but then again - their disadvantage is that they dry so quickly! I was really happy with the result though.

Excited to be exhibiting at https://www.leamingtonartfest.co.uk on Saturday alongside 45 other artists and designers on Saturday…accompanied by the ‘Christmas Tree Festival’, carol singing and festive music.

The scale of this piece allowed me to be really loose with my brushwork and the background close up is a beautiful mixture of soft pastel shades.

It’s always a challenge for owners to get both dogs, close together, in one photo that they are happy with…its worth persevering to get a good shot though, backgrounds can always be eliminated! This one was a wedding gift :)

A four week ‘Pet Painting’ workshop starting Monday Jan 23rd, to be held in the LSA Artroom, Leamington Spa.

Leamington Studio Artists (LSA) are a charity dedicated to supporting artists in the local area whose aim is ‘to foster and increase public interest, awareness and appreciation of the visual arts.’

Loving painting all the warm and cool browns in Izzy’s coat. Some animals just love to smile :)

Interesting silhouettes and some degree of light and shade are essential when photographing black animals for portraits!

So called because of her little black moustache. Its always a challenge to paint ‘white’ in shadow…I don’t want to just paint it grey so you’ll always find an interesting mix of colours in the shadow areas!

A gift from one friend to another on the passing of a loyal canine companion. Recipients are often genuinely moved to receive their portraits and often get in touch afterwards to say how much they love their painting - makes it all worthwhile.

I enjoyed experimenting with this one in a way I can't really when working on commissions. Unusual limited palette, more blending and softer brushstrokes than I would normally use

I love the way the whiskers lay on the floor on this one. There are 3 types of edges… ‘hard edges’, ‘soft edges’ and the special ‘lost edges’…they are the most interesting ones…where the edge of the object is lost to the background.

I love the way the whiskers reach out almost unnoticed to fill the square frame on this one. I tried really hard to stick to my initial value study on this one! Click to see my process pics :)

I started with a tonal map consisting of 4 values (light, light midtone, dark midtone, dark) and mixed my paint to fit each value range…After that It’s a simple case of putting the lights in the light shapes, darks in the dark shapes etc! (If only it were that easy)!!

Spent the morning spent painting on ‘Mill St’, Warwick in the shadow of Warwick Castle . It’s funny how you get a real sense for a place when you sit still and quiet for a length of time and let the world there pass you by.

An immensely enjoyable morning spent painting sunflowers @lodgefarmsunflowers. Not only can you ‘pick your own’, but there is homemade cake on sale, tea and coffee and all the money raised from the sale of them is going to charity.

This was a special commission to be given to the lady that has lived here and nurtured this beautiful garden for the last 60 years.  Her late husband is tending to the roses under the beech tree. Process pics in post.

Loving the way the ladder frames the flowers. Painted live ‘Blenheim Palace Flower Show’ in the showgarden of ‘Micklems Farm Flowers & Creative Workshops’

This was such a beautiful relaxed pose that encompassed her head, paws and tail all neatly in in the square…such a lovely composition. Process pics in post.