Red Squirrel Traditional Heart painting

Latest Articles at my Step by Step Art website

Mini Tutorial Graphite Pencils - Blending & Erasing for Beginners Looking to try Graphite Pencils as a new medium but not sure where to start or how to get the best out of them? Take a look at this Step by Step article on how to apply, blend and erase to create realistic graphite portraits.

Karen's 1 day Art Workshops 2018 - From £42.00pp

Amethyst Sunbird on Red Hot Poker

Hibiscus Flower

Haze the Black Labrador - Progress so far in the first 4 stages

​Good Golly, Miss Molly! - A pretty little Dachshund girl amongst Cherry Blossoms Acrylic Art

'Summertime Boy' - An Acrylic painting of our Yellow Labrador 'Storm' relaxing in the evening sunshine

The latest Articles available for free to All Artists

Ursus Paper Article

Derwent Coloursoft ​Coloured Pencils

Hot Pressed Watercolor Papers

Tonal Layering in Coloured Pencils

New Articles coming soon to Step by Step Art

Starting out with  ​Oils

About Unison ​Soft Pastels

Starting out with ​Coloured Pencils

Pastel Skies Step by Step Tutorial

Please Note: These 4 articles are not yet available to view but will be linked up once they are.

1 Day Art Workshops in Chesterfield, Derbyshire

Snow Leopard Eye ​Coloured Pencil Workshop Completed in May

Ring-tailed Lemur Graphite Pencil Workshop Completed in May

Northern Inuit Coloured Pencil Workshop Saturday 12th August 2017 10am - 3:30pm 4 spaces Available

As this weekend has been very grey & drizzly I thought I would get to work on one of my Acrylic paintings sat on my 'progress' shelves here in the studio. This is a 12" x 16" painting of a stunning Jaguar that I photographed last year and knew it would make the perfect composition.  The base of the canvas was painted with a wash of Burnt Sienna before starting the build up of the background and I then moved on

12" x 16" on a 3mm Gessobord  -  Original Art For Sale £415.00
and Giclee Prints From £45.00 (A4)

Buddy the Springer Spaniel  -  11" x 14" Buddy's portrait was created using 5 different photographs. The body taken from this photo, the head from another, the tail from a third, the background from a fourth and some of the background flowers from a fifth image, all cut and pasted together to create the mock up of the reference image. Doing this can throw a whole lot of problems into the mix as different images can have different lighting, luckily I was able to ensure the correct balance as I was provided with lots of great quality photos that i could pull detail from. As you would suspect the grass took the longest as each blade of grass was applied individually and this was done in 3 layers so individually repeated 3 times!

The base layer - Very messy but important

The final completed painting

"​​I'm sitting looking at Buddy in pride of place on the wall, photo attached! It is absolutely lovely and it had the desired effect on Steve when he unwrapped - there were tears!! Everyone that has seen it has said how amazing it is with the amount of fine detail and so Buddy. If I manage to get a decent photo of Buddy next to it I will send it on!  Thank you once again, it is lovely to have a painting of Buddy forever."
Esther

Dudley the Springer Spaniel  -  9" x 12" in Acrylics This was a lovely composition but a tiny photo meaning that it pixelated when zooming in and the detail was lost in the face, especially around the eyes. The Commissionee loved the composition so much that I decided to see what I could do and asked if she could send some close up photos of Dudley taken in a less sunny environment and using all the photos together, I elaborated on the background/foreground somewhat and toned down the colouration on his head whilst still keeping the favoured stance. This was a challenge but I really loved the composition too and was happy with the final painting.

Loose undertones preparing for the layering

The final painting

"​​Just wanted to let you know that mum loves her portrait and we all cried our eyes out when we first saw it. What you've done is so special and we couldn't have asked for a better painting to remember him by. It captures his brilliant personality so well.  I'll definitely be recommending you to my spaniel loving friends!
Picture of framed painting to follow soon!
Andrea xx."

The Commissionee only had a few photos of Kita who they had recently lost and so I was limited to flash photos. This image was a nice pose but as flash distorts natural colour I had to guess the balance by using online photos as reference. The image was slightly blurry up close but I found that I was able to apply a lot of fine detail simply by being aware of the fur shortness and the final portrait was far more detailed than I thought possible due to the quality of the photo. The final painting was framed in a lovely black frame which helped Kita's portrait to stand out.

"​Hi Karen,  I just wanted you to know that I absolutely love my painting of Kita.  Thank you so much, you have done the most amazing portrait of him. He was my best friend and my little boy and the painting has been hung in the living room so we can all admire him everyday! Thank you again xx"

Diarmid E-mailed me a great photo of himself, his girlfriend Max and their little French Bulldog Kyla stood in front of the famous red phone box from the film 'Local Hero' when they visited Pennan in Aberdeenshire. As the phone box only covered half the background and the other half would add nothing to the composition it was decided to leave the background out completely and simply write 'Pennan' in the corner of the portrait. As mobile phone images tend to 'flatten' detail, the fineness of the Coloured pencils brought back the sharpness of detail and I really enjoyed creating this portrait - I always love a challenge!

Working on the undertones and building up the tonal layers

The final portrait treated with an application of UV fixative

"​Hi Karen , Hope you had a lovely Christmas. Wanted to drop you a note to say that Max absolutely loved the portrait! She couldn't believe how well you'd captured the detail from the photo and was thrilled to pieces!  We've already recommended you to friends and family and am sure we'll use your amazing skills again in the the future.  Have a great New Year!!  ​Diarmid"

​This portrait was the last drawing I completed for Christmas and depicts 2 Bearded Collie's called Pyppa (L) & William (R) completed in Coloured pencils. I had taken some photos of them both a year earlier but as William (R) is a rather nervous little boy, I struggled to get any close ups of him. trying to distinguish between them after a year was a challenge too! I was provided with a few great quality photos which I could also use to add in their eyes a little more too.

"​Thank you so much for my beautiful portrait, you've really excelled yourself this time, its amazing!"

Kita

"I just wanted you to know that I absolutely love my painting of Kita. You have done the most amazing portrait of him, he was my best friend and my little boy. I love him so much and the painting of him has been put up in the living room so we can all admire him everyday!!!
Thank you again" xx
Rachel