Interior with Plant - painting

 

This painting came about as a result of a process of making drawings from observation, a colour study and now this, the final painting.

Interior with Plant - sketch

Here's a tiny sketch that I'm in the process of turning into a painting.

Just doodling.

Decided to try out new fine ink pens by taking one for a walk on a sketch book page.

During the family visit to the UK in the summer, H needed to do some work on his rally-car which he stores in a friend's barn in the Cotswolds whilst we're living away in Cyprus.  Personally I think it was just an excuse to stroke it and give it a cuddle ;)  As long at it makes him happy, that's fine with me ... plus it gave me time to sit in a beautiful English country garden with my sketch book.

Driving through the green countryside with it's mellow stone buildings that day, made me realise more than ever just how much I miss England.  I'm praying that circumstances will allow us to return soon.

Animal art and rescue

 

My family of pets make great subjects for the sketchbook.  Ideal because generally they don't stay still for long, even when sleeping.  So they encourage rapid spontaneous drawing.  

You can email me for information about anything you see.  A small collection of work can also sometimes be seen in my Etsy shop. 

Earlier this month my dog pack increased by one.  Yet again, I'm sad to say, because of the cruelty of a local human being.  When we found her, Lady had been dumped on the mountain and was hiding in a thorn bush waiting to die.  She was terribly under-nourished, suffering from a blood infection caused by tick infestation and also had ring worm.

The bald skin was caused by the ringworm fungus.

 Here she is patiently allowing Dimitris our vet, remove ticks from her bleeding ears.

 I'm now very happy to say that almost 3 weeks later, Lady is in much better shape.  After lots of antibiotics, vaccination, good food, vitamins, minerals, many special shampoo treatments and loads of love, her blood is recovering as is her skin and her hair is growing again.  She has the sweetest of natures and is lively and full of fun without being difficult to handle.

Here she is playing with George, who she absolutely adores!

There's been some changes ....

It's been four months since I last posted on this blog.  I suspect previous regular readers will have long since got tired of waiting for updates.  So I expect I'm 'talking' to myself.

Fact is, the college course I'm taking has been keeping me extremely busy and for the time being I've had slow down on painting commissions and other commercial art.

I really am loving the way the course is getting me to take a fresh look at my work.  It really is like starting from square one.  It's good because I am learning lots, both practically and academically.  

It's one drawback is that it's taken me a little while to get back into painting portraits from photos.  My natural work is now much looser and I've been painting mostly from life for college, which is not exactly ideal if like me, you have clients from all over the world via the internet.  I'm relaxing back into alternating my style now, so all is well.  

This blog will change alot from how it used to be and I'm not really sure how it will develop.  In the past I've tended not to blog much very personal stuff, so I doubt that will change.  My college learning log is kept quite separately, so there won't be much in the way of student artwork to see.  But I may post the odd sketch here and there.  I'll just see how I feel.

It's been quite an eventful summer.  There was a fabulously happy family wedding on the island in July.  Plus H and I hopped over to England to continue the celebrations for a few days.  Like all good art students I had my sketchbook handy in transit.  So when we were delayed at Larnaca Airport, I put it to good use. 

At first I felt awkward looking at people so intently as I drew.  I didn't want to embarass anyone.  I soon got over it.  Generally people are more interested in what they are upto, and less likely to notice me scribbling away.

New portrait painting of Carlotta Valdes

A big thank you to my client for re-introducing me to the Alfred Hitchcock film, Vertigo and for commissioning this new portrait of Carlotta.  Never in a million years would I have otherwise thought of making this painting.  But it's been fascinating and I'm glad I did it!

Here are clips of all the work-in-progress stages on this painting:

Portrait of Carlotta Valdes ACEO

I'm completing outstanding portrait commissions and was reminded that I hadn't shown the final version of Carlotta, so here she is.  If you'd like to see 'work in progress' images of this small ACEO size portrait you're welcome to take a look HERE.

I've now been asked to paint a large portrait of Carlotta Valdes on canvas.  The client has very kindly sent me a DVD of the Vertigo film, which I've been studying. The portrait featured in the film is extremely haunting and I have to say I'm becoming a fan of the the piece in general.  Alfred Hitchcock must have been both a genius and a complicated man.