Anniversary - May 1st

It's 20 years today that I first met my Icelandic horse 'Kolbakur'. On May 1st 1989 my parents very kindly took me to an Icelandic horse stud and generously bought 'Kolli' for me, a 9-year-old black Icelandic gelding. I must have been the world's happiest girl! Kolli was part of my life for the following 17 years. I lost him in February 2006.
So this blog post is for you, Kolli.

I love you my little bear.....you are always in my heart...always and forever!

Jack Russell Terrier - dog pastel portrait

This is what I'm currently drawing: a Jack Russell Terrier puppy - pastels on velour paper. The little dog called 'Chica' is all white so it'll be a bit of a challenge! Watch this space.

Cat pastel portrait finished

Right, here it is. The British Shorthair cat pastel portrait is finished. The background is really a soft light green not neon - thank you very much yet again, scanner. ^^

What is it that makes cat portraits harder to do than horses or dogs...or is it just me? I'll be doing a pastel on velour next...a sweet Jack Russell Terrier pup on velour. Looking forward to that one! Well apart from one thing..the puppy is being held by a human hand. Oh dear... I have drawn hands before and thought they were a nightmare. Oh well maybe it'll be easier this time. I'll keep you posted!

Cat portrait WIP

This is a new WIP scan of the British Shorthair cat (the horse portrait is finished but I can't show it until after the recipient's birthday in June). It's not easy to make the fur look soft but I hope I'll get there. Unfortunately I wasn't able to do any work this weekend due to a migraine with all the bells and whistles. Quite awful really and I don't feel great today either but at least I can sit up straight and don't feel quite as sick anymore. So hopefully I'll be able to get some work done today as the cat's owner can't wait to see the finished portrait. She's a lovely lady who I've drawn 4 portraits for in the past. Don't you just love customers who keep coming back for more!

I have finished one of the photography pages (the one about my favourite zoo animals - meerkats!) but I'm still debating whether to let you have a peek or wait until all the pages are finished (in the distant future...it is just SO time consuming!). I won't spend as long on the other pages though...I just wanted to add some meerkat information and make it a 'proper' meerkat web page. I guess you can tell that I love meerkats! ;o)