Michelle Wrighton Fine Art and Photography

Hi and welcome to my new art blog! My name is Michelle, I am a Western Australian artist who specialises in Pet Portraiture and Small Format Art in a variety of mediums, including graphite (black and white), Artists colour pencils, ink, acrylic and pastels.

Small Format Art (SFA) is defined as any type of artwork that has a maximum size of 14 inches (35.5cm) in any one direction. SFA is collectible, affordable artwork that make wonderful unique displays in homes and offices to suit your own personal decor or personality. SFA can be collected by artist, theme, style, color or an eclectic mix to create an eye catching display to suit your own individual taste. They are especially suited for small display areas such as hallways, mantlepieces and desk tops where larger art work would be unsuitable or simply wouldn’t fit.

As an artist with three small chilren, I love Small Format Art because the smaller size allows me to be creative and productive within the limited time that I have available. Although SFA’s can take 50-60 hours or more to complete over many days or even weeks, it is also very rewarding to be able to complete a finished painting in a looser more artistic style in just a day or two!

I love animals and the majority of the artwork I create is animal portraits. As a professional Pet Portrait Artist, my pet portraits are highly detailed and very realistic – if you would like to see examples, they can be viewed on my website http://www.pencilportraits.com.au.

However, with the SFA I create, I find myself drawn more towards less realistic styles that really express my creativity – I really don’t like labels and would prefer at this point in time not to be limited to creating art within the confines of only one artistic ‘style’. Many different art movements inspire me and as a result, the SFA that I create is an eclectic mix of styles that might normally be labelled as abstract expressionism, minimalism, surrealism or modern/contemporary with some representational pieces thrown in for good measure! That is my idea ofArtistic Freedom:)

I’ve decided to create this blog as a separate entity to my original blog http://www.petportraitartist.blogspot.com/ for several reasons – firstly, for myself I like the idea of maintaining a visual diary of my work and at the same time being able to record some of my thoughts and emotions surrounding each piece, and secondly the majority of Small Format Art that I create will be available for sale in different venues such as Ebay, Art Wanted, Art Cards Wanted and Art By Us and by listing each artwork here in one place, it will be easier for me to keep track of everything, plus I would imagine it will be a bit easier for those who like to collect my artwork:) If you would like to join me on this journey of dscovery, please add this blog to your RSS feed to recieve notification when new art work is added (simply click on the second orange button on the right that says ‘Feed’ – or if you use atom click the first button that says ‘Site Feed’).

Cheers

Michelle

‘Tall Poppies’ 4″x4″ art squared, acrylic on canvas, 2006

‘Solitaire’ 4″x4″ art squared, acrylic on canvas, 2006.

‘Ginger Kitty’ 4″x4″ art squared, Prismacolor pencils on blue suedeboard, 2006

Michelle

I finally have a chance to add an entry this week!

This is my latest ACEO of a green tree frog, titled “Frog on A Log” (ACEO #15), which I will be listing on Ebay either later today or tomorrow. This will be the only opportunity to own this cute little frog because if he dosn’t sell, my hubby has claimed him!

This photo is a cropped enlarged version showing some of the detail.

and another landscape “Snow Covered Mountain”

The first lot of ACEO’s I have ever offered for sale (including the Golden Retriever, Siamese Kitten, the pelican, frangipani and Teddy bear) will be ending on Ebay in the next few hours, if you collect ACEO’s have a look as some of them don’t have any bids.

Click here to view current Ebay auctions.

Because of the cost of listing items on Ebay, it seems that many artists don’t re-list items that don’t sell at auction, but list them in their Ebay Stores at a much higher retail price. This makes sense to me – apart from the cost of Ebay fees, I think way to many artists undervalue their work – and is something I am considering on doing with my own Ebay store – I’d love to hear your opinion (as an artist or art collector) on having a policy like this.

If I am lucky I can run to my studio and grab a couple of hours to myself, and hopefully create a masterpiece!

Bye for now

Michelle

This is probably my favourite piece that I have done this year. The look in this dog’s eyes just says it all, he is laying there patiently waiting for his owner to come back.

This piece was completed purely in colour pencils on cream Stonehenge paper and took well over 55 hours of work to complete. It was worth it though, because it was awarded First Place in the Painting & Drawings: Animals class at the second Art Show I entered last month – pretty amazing seeing as colour pencil is such a new Fine Art medium, and because the other entries included oils, acrylics and pastels!

Cheers

Michelle

pencilportraits.com.au

Well what do you know, its day two and I am actually posting! Today has been one of those Blah type days, you know the kind that you’d rather forget? Seeing as I am quite please with this so far, I thought I’d cheer myself up and post a progress shot of Amarok’s portrait…Amarok is a seven year old Siberian Husky. This started out in pastel and colour pencil but has ended up mostly acrylic, what can I say, I got carried away with my paintbrush:) This is my second attempt at an animal in acrylic so I am actually pleasantly surprised that it is looking pretty good. And I am really enjoying slapping the paint around. It still needs alot more work on the right ear (viewers right) and the large expanse of white fur needs further layers and modelling, and I am not yet happy with the mouth. Of course this is a pretty cruddy picture and the colours are not true to life – there is actually a good amount of cream fur above the eyes up to the base of the ears.

So here she is, Amarok in progress (after about 10 hours work)…hopefully I can finish her by the weekend.

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