“Major” the English Springer Spaniel is a reproduction of an original 8″ x 10″ acrylic and pencil painting
A selected range of quality products featuring this painting “Major” can be seen below and are now available for purchase.
“Royalty”
Greyhound
Original acrylic painting
by
Michelle Wrighton
8″x10″ on 1.8cm deep gallery wrapped canvas
$135.00 (includes shipping)
10% of your investment in this artwork will be donated to K9 Rescue
"Royalty" original Greyhound dog painting by Michelle Wrighton
This is a small acrylic painting of Gilley, a rescue Greyhound dog from the UK. Greyhounds have the most beautiful, big, liquid, expressive eyes that are an absolute joy to paint. As a breed, Greyhounds have such a regal bearing that the deep purple background seemed appropriate for Gilley’s painting
These smaller paintings are very enjoyable to do, although this one is still quite detailed, I am really trying to loosen up and capture the essence of the animal without being totally pre-occupied with capturing every last detail!
The painting is continued on all four edges and is ready to hang. “Royalty” is available on merchandise and prints, but this is the first time this original painting from my personal collection has been offered for sale.
*The copyright watermark is a digital addition to the image below and is not on the original painting.
I have done a bit more modelling of Poppy’s face and have started on her eyes. It takes many thin glazes (layers) of paint of various shades of browns and golds to achieve the luminous liquid look of animal eyes, but having made a start on her eyes, Poppy is starting to come to life.
In this next progress shot, I have done a bit more work on the field and have started to add in the red poppy flowers. I’ve also continued with the modelling of her face and started the basic underpainting on her body. Obviously the underpainting is just blocking in shapes (shadows and lights) to create the form of her body before the detail starts to go on in the top layers. I’ve also added some purple to the paynes grey to tie the background in with the dog’s fur, to give depth to the darkest shadows and to start creating some of the red highlights that are apparent in the reference photo of the black labrador retriever that I am using. Thats a handy co-incidence that will work well to tie in the colours in the dog with the background:)
This painting is in a very, very ugly stage that seems to be lasting forever. As much as it looks like it now, this will not be an abstract painting of a dog when it is finished. LOL – at least I hope not!
I am working this painting in the same way that many oil painters use – multiple thin glazes of colour, so it is pretty time consuming. This has taken about 16 hours so far and I would say has at least that many more to go.
Michelle
This is the latest piece I have been working on, an acrylic landscape painting created in a modern minimalist style on gallery wrapped chunky canvas. This painting developed quite differently from my original inspiration, so differently in fact that I initially started painting purple clouds! I am quite pleased with the way this one is coming along, as it was the strong contrasts in the light and darks of a desert sunset that I wanted to capture, and in particular I wanted to achieve this with rather bold brush strokes (considering the size of the canvas) and some pallette knife work for added texture. After looking at this piece for several days I am contemplating whether or not to further lighten some of the area around the sun, and some of the reflections in the middle of the painting.
One of the things that I am finding rather surprising with the modern, minimalist, abstract/contemporary styles that I am experimenting with at the moment is just how long they take to complete to my staisfaction – simple and less detailed definitely does not necessarily equate to less time to create, and I can definitely say that I have a new found respect for artists who work in these styles!
“Desert Sunset”, Acrylic on gallery wrapped canvas, 2006
Cheers
Michelle
This is the first floral acrylic painting I have done, of a tropical Bird of Paradise that I have growing in my front yard (I have a ‘brown’ thumb so its lucky this poor plant is still alive:). I really love the striking colours in this tropical flower, which is actually a native plant of South Africa and is also known as a Strelitzia.
This piece was definitely experimental, and a lesson in completing the background first – originally I had the flower backlit with a studio style background but I couldn’t achieve the halo lighting effect that I was visualizing so settled on a more abstract background.
The first image shows the whole painting, but after playing around with it in my graphics program I think for framing I prefer the closer crop of the second image. Overall I am happy with it, but at this stage I’m not sure if it needs more glazing or if it is ready to spray with gloss varnish so I will leave it for a couple of days and then take another look at it.
Above: Full painting Below: Cropped
“Bird of Paradise”, 8″x11″ Acrylic on canvas
More information on growing this beautiful tropical plant can be found on the Tropical gardening website.
Michelle
In an effort to streamline things and hopefully be slightly more productive with my time, I have transfered most of my available artwork to Art ByUs (ABU) including ACEO’s and some of my sterling silver jewellery items (I do have some additional jewellery that I will also be adding there later).
I will still be listing a few items on Ebay from time to time, but most likely only the pieces that I create as part of the ‘theme’ challenges that happen from time to time (some weekly, some monthly) on the different Ebay Artists groups that I belong to, such as this acrylic painting that was part of the April ‘Spring’ theme organised by the Small Format Artists Ebay Group. This painting is 4″x4″ acrylic on canvas and is titled ‘Tall Poppies”.
To find other artwork on Ebay created by other artists as part of the ‘Spring’ Theme week, simply search Ebay for “SPRING theme week SFA”.
Michelle
I’ve definitely been on a water kick lately, I guess maybe because in the last few weeks we’ve finally had some hot summer weather, if of course you don’t count the rain we are having today (although of course that is water too!). I’m really enjoying experimenting with these paintings and reducing the amount of detail that I am including in them…not always so easy given my background in bery detailed and realistic art, but lots of fun none-the-less.
This modern beach painting was created from my imagination, and is 4″x4″ acrylic on canvas.
“View from the Dune”
Currently Available on Art By Us
These two ACEO’s (2.5″x3.5″) were also done in acrylics on mattboard:
“Dune with a View”
Michelle
This is an abstract painting I completed yesterday, another in my flow series, experimenting with different interpretations of fluid motion. LOL – capturing digital images of my artwork is a challenge in itself -no matter what I do I can’t seem to get the images to accurately reflect the depth and detail.
I painted this one horizontally, like ripples in a pond, however when my ten year old daughter saw it she promptly turned it upright and told me I had painted a purple wave. That individual interpretation is what I love about abstract art, and I have called this one ‘Purple Wave’ purely because my daughters vision was different from mine!
“Purple Wave”, 5″x7″ on canvas board, 2006. Currently available at ArtByUs.
Michelle
