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It has been a while since I posted on my News page as it has been very busy here in the studio and I completed my final Chesterfield Art Workshop of this year in August and so I thought I would share some of my recent Acrylic paintings with you.  I currently have a list of works to start and others to finalise and more shelves have been put up in the studio to house all my portraits. I prefer to work between portraits as well as swapping mediums, as this works better for me and so there are currently 20 portraits in progress stages, more nearing completion than those in the early stages. Here are 3 of my recent works that I have not yet shared within the pages of my website: Amethyst Sunbird on Red Hot PokerSince finding the talented Scotch Macaskill's Reference photos website, I have been inspired to get back to my first love in Art which is Birds. Scotch is an amateur photographer who lives in South Africa and captures whatever photos of South African Wildlife that he can whilst on Safari with whatever camera he has to hand at the time. I have chosen many reference images from his site and these paintings when complete, will be added to a new website purely depicting all my Wildlife Art, mostly Acrylic work but some Coloured pencil portraits too. I will keep you up to date with this new website but suspect it will be sometime next year when it is up and running as I have a lot of paintings to create yet! Here is one of the first Sunbirds I am working on. It is a male Amethyst feeding on a Red Hot Poker flower also known as a Torch Lily. Hibiscus FlowerI have had the ideal composition photograph of a Red Hibiscus flower for many years and knew I would create it in Art at some point. I chose the Acrylics for such a subject as their vibrancy would be ideal for such a colourful subject.  I applied some tiny blobs of Molding Paste to areas where there were water droplets on the flower and as I already had a gold frame for this portrait, decided to change the colour of the flower to yellow, although the portrait is not yet finished and I may yet change my mind again! This is progress so far along side my little pots of pre-mixed colours that I use for this and a few other paintings I have on the go. Haze the Black Labrador - Progress so far in the first 4 stagesAs we have 4 dogs - 3 Labradors & a Springer Spaniel who love splashing around in the water when we take them out on walks, I wanted to do 4 separate portraits of each and as I enjoy the challenge of painting water, I picked out 4 of my favourite photos that we have captured of them over the years. I have already completed the Springer Spaniel Casper, and this is Haze, the daft Labrador of the bunch! The slideshow below shows current progress of this painting in 4 stages. The background is always the first thing I work on and the main subject can then be finalised afterwards.
Thanks for viewing and I hope you found this post interesting, Feel free to 'like' or leave us a comment below! Have a lovely day, Karen :)
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Good Golly, Miss Molly! - A pretty little Dachshund girl amongst Cherry Blossoms Acrylic ArtIn between Commissions, I will pick the paintbrushes up and work on a Non-Commission portrait. The first one is of a gorgeous little Black Dachshund dressed up for her photo op in the Cherry Blossoms which I thought would make a stunning painting and after Molly's Mum gave me the green light to use her reference photo, I chose a square 12" x 12" canvas size and set to work.
This is quite a technical piece as usually I will begin with the background ensuring it is 95% complete before beginning the subject itself but as there is so much detail in the background and some overlap onto Molly herself, I am doing a little bit of to-ing and fro-ing, it also breaks up the monotony of all those pink petals which can make you 'blind' to detail if I stare at something for too long.  I purchased a frame for it a while back and chose the detailed yet understated 'BROCKWELL' black frame (priced at £45) mainly to set those pinks off well but also as a compliment to Molly's colouration ensuring both the frame and flowers will not overpower Molly once complete. There are many more hours to do but I will post here when I have further updates so do keep checking back regularly or you can follow me on my Facebook page at Karen M Berisford's Artworld. 'Summertime Boy' - An Acrylic painting of our Yellow Labrador 'Storm' relaxing in the evening sunshineWe have 4 dogs ( 3 Labradors & a Springer Spaniel) and 2 birds (Ringneck Parakeet & a Cockatiel) I wanted to create some small paintings of each to hang at the top of our stairs, so I opted for an 8" x 10" size and picked favourite images of each dog in the same type of stance ( head to the side) with a 'foliage' background to match.
I began with our Yellow Labrador Storm, and loosely applied the background colours as a base which can look rather messy at this stage but then I tidy it up and create a softer balance of tones, I then move on to the main subject. In the reference photo, there is a lot of sun shining on the right side of the body and some of his natural colour has been lost due to the need to lighten up a dark photo and so I decided to work from another photo of him to add a more natural colour to his fur and to soften the harsh glow of the sun somewhat.  I chose the ASHGATE frame (priced at £40) to compliment all the portraits as it is a tonal colour of silver/gold which would match the warm browns in the Yellow Labrador & the Liver Springer and the silver tones would suit the Black Labradors and the neutral colours (greys/whites) of my 2 Birdies also. I will keep updating this blog with progress as and when, understandably I have a lot to do with 6 paintings but I think they'll look beautiful together once all framed and hung!
Feel free to share this post or leave a comment below if you wish! Thanks for reading and have a great day! Karen |
AuthorKaren M Berisford 
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