Michelle Wrighton Fine Art and Photography

I am finally catching up to date with my blog posts, just a few more to do now:)  This is Ralphie, the first pet portrait I have painted in my “Inspire me to Paint” series.

Ralphie was a very special rescue dog and survivor of Hurricane Katrina who passed away in March of this year. Ralphies story submitted by his owner Dana can be read on my facebook page Michelle Wrighton Artist.

Ralphie - Pet Portrait ©2010 Michelle Wrighton

I was a very good little blogger and had this post of a black and tan Saluki Dog that I drew in graphite all ready to post a day or so after my lamb drawing.  However, life was turned upside down when my little girl was involved in a serious horse riding accident.  She was rushed by air to Princess Margaret Hospital in Perth by the Royal Fying Doctor Service and underwent emergency surgery in the middle of the night.  It will take time, but she was extremely lucky and should make a full recovery (LOL and now that she is starting to feel better she is quite happy to have an extra few weeks off school;).

My intention over the past few weeks with getting my new studio sorted out was to start promoting my commission work and start taking pet portrait commissions again.  However the timing of this accident has giving me time to think about both the past and the future.  I have realized that there have been so many similar situations over the years that has made working to deadlines for commissions very stressful and at time simply beyond reasonable possibility.  This has caused additional stress  that my family and I really don’t need while dealing with long term serious health issues that on many occasions over the last seven years have been life threatening.

I have looked back at the last few years and have reassessed my future plans for my art.  I realize that the last 12 months of painting digitally and my recent graphite drawings that I have created for myself from whatever has inspired me has been wonderfully enjoyable stress-free therapy.  Given my personal circumstances, the happiness and ‘time out’  that my artwork brings me is something that I desperately need to retain for my own sanity and health.  So by posting this, I am publicly giving myself permission to just enjoy my art, to experiment and create whatever inspires me in which ever medium I feel like using, without the need to be concerned that the end result will meet anyone elses expectations.  For a commissions artist, that thought is quite a liberating one!

Saluki Dog graphite drawing by Michelle Wrighton ©2010

Another graphite sketch, this is Lucky Baa, our first Dorper lamb.  Baa was also the first ‘pet’ lamb that we have had to bring inside and bottle feed for the first few days as the poor little tyke broke his right front leg.  Apparently its not uncommon for the mother to step on the lamb and break its leg, which is what we suspect happened with Baa.  We made up an assortment of leg splints from carpet and pvc piping cut in half  and wrapped the leg with vet wrap and kept changing the splint as he grew.  Having a splinted leg certainly dosn’t stop him from doing anything the other lambs are doing!

Dorper Lamb graphite drawing

Thanks for visiting my blog  and sharing my art and photography with your family and friends!

x Michelle

Michelle Wrighton: Animal, Wildlife & Landscape Fine Art & Photography

FACEBOOK: Michelle Wrighton Artist

TWITTER: artistMichelleW

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Well I tried very hard to get into my studio to start a painting, but with school holidays, kids, horses, sheep dogs and an assortment of others things (including my little studio laptop that I use to display reference photos dying unexpectedly) I haven’t made it into the studio to actually paint.  The website re-design is also taking up some time, but once that is ready my website will revert back to being a full ‘static’ website with this blog part of the website.

In between everything else, I have managed a couple of graphite sketches to help me get back into the swing of things. I was a bit rusty at first as I haven’t done any graphite work for a couple of years, but these sketches have reminded me why I love graphite so much.  I have deliberately created these as sketches rather than detailed photorealistic drawings and have found that not focusing on achieving strict photorealism has made the process so much more enjoyable and I can definitely see myself doing a lot more work that while still realistic is looser and more expressive that the traditional work I have created in the past.   LOL I am sure that being able to start and finish a drawing within five hours instead of slaving over it for 50 hours is partly why I enjoyed it more!

Border Collie puppy graphite drawing on A4 drafting film by Michelle Wrighton

If you would like to commission a pencil portrait graphite sketch in this style of your own Border Collie, dog, cat, horse or other pet please contact me to discuss your requirements.

Thanks for visiting my blog  and sharing my art and photography with your family and friends!

x Michelle

Michelle Wrighton: Animal, Wildlife & Landscape Fine Art & Photography

FACEBOOK: Michelle Wrighton Artist

TWITTER: artistMichelleW

BUY CUSTOMIZED ART POSTERS, ART PRINTS, T-SHIRTS & GIFTS: Zazzle

BUY CARDS, PHOTO PRINTS, CANVAS ART AND FRAMED ART PRINTS: Redbubble

Living in a rural area provides me with a never ending supply of subject matter to photograph and paint.  Over the last few months, I’ve been able to obtain some beautiful reference photos of the calves and lambs on nearby farms, as well as many of our own Dorper sheep and our first lot of six lambs.  This one was painted before calving season started, but the expression on this little guys face depicts the curiosity of cows perfectly.

I think cows may be as curious as cats, maybe even more so.  Usually when I walk up to them with my camera they all run off a short distance then turn and look back at me.  Then there will always be one cow that has to come straight back to find out who I am and what I am doing and this one gives courage to the rest of them:)

This is another digital painting created using Painter XI and a Wacom Intuos 4 drawing tablet.

South west calf painting © Michelle Wrighton

The step by step image below shows how I develop the painting from the initial sketch, the colours I use in the underpainting and how the painting is built up in semi transparent glazes to create depth and texture.  I paint swatches of the colours I am using onto the background so that it is easy for me to pick up the correct base colour which I then lighten/darken as required.  I use a variety of different brushes and ‘digital’ mediums when I paint digitally, this was done a while ago I can’t remember which specific brushes I used, but I usually swap and change between oils, acrylics and pastels depending on what I am trying to achieve.  This is *not* something that you can do with traditional art mediums, although you can certainly mix mediums, there are specific processes required to ensure the stability of the painting such as oils over acrylic rather than the other way round.

Although I find it easy to paint very realistic details, creating a more ‘painterly’ image that I am happy with is more of a challenge.  I have exactly the same problem with painting in traditional paints and drawing with graphite or colour pencils, but digital painting has finally given me the opportunity to experiment with creating images that are less photo-realistic than most of my previous artwork.  Its a very refreshing change, and probably part of the reason that I enjoy digital painting so much.

step by step animal painting

Gifts for cow lovers, art prints, canvas prints and other merchandise featuring my original art, ‘South West Calf’ are now available for purchase from the Farm Animal Section on my Zazzle giftshop.

I am slowly resigning myself to the idea that the ‘challenges’ of country wireless internet means I can’t necessarily update my blog whenever its suitable to me and that blog posts are probably better late than never. So in that spirit, this is an older digital painting of Annabelle, a black Standard Poodle, with a step by step progress demonstration image to show how the painting was created.

Black Standard Poodle Pet Portrait Painting

Although painted digitally using my Intuos 4 drawing tablet and ‘digital’ paintbrush, I develop the painting digitally just like I do when painting or drawing with traditional art mediums. I sketch the subject, and then start adding colour by blocking in the main shapes and values (shadows and highlights), and ‘glaze’ with varying degrees of transparent colour to create depth and form. Finally the details are added to complete the painting.

Painting in Progress images Black Standard Poodle

If you would like to commission a portrait of your poodle or other pet in traditional oil paints, graphite/charcoal or a digital painting such as this one, please contact me to discuss your requirements.

‘Horse of Colour’ is a new digital oil horse painting in which I have again gone for a contemporary look, focused on the colours rather than detail, using soft pastel hues of violet, lemon, mint and baby blue highlighted brush strokes floated over the blended colours to express the soft romanticism of a much loved kind and gentle show pony.

Horse of Colour - modern horse painting by Michelle Wrighton

Close up cropped image to show detail

‘Donnybrook Rose’ was a joy to paint, quite mesmerizing to paint the sweep and flow of the gentle curves reminiscent of a roses delicate petals.  Dark purples, magenta, plum and red violets contrast beautifully against the rich gold, copper and pale blue reminiscent of the iridescent sheen on a Ulysses Butterfly’s wings.

Modern contemporary floral art painting by Michelle Wrighton

This original art painting, like many modern abstract art pieces, is best viewed in a large size to appreciate the full depth of colours and texture of the brushstrokes.

‘Donnybrook Rose’ is available to buy as a framed print, greeting card, or matted, mounted, laminated or canvas print: Purchase “DonnyBrook Rose”

“Donnybrook Rose’ is available to buy as a poster, mousepad, prints, coffee mug, t-shirt and gift items: Purchase “Donnybrook Rose”

If ‘Donnybrook Rose’ would suit your interior decor and you would like to purchase a  unique hand painted and embellished canvas print of ‘Donnybrook Rose’  please contact me for pricing and purchase options.  Contemporary images using different colour schemes can also be created to your requirements.

A few people have asked recently how I create my digital paintings so I thought I would write a post with some work in progress images to show how I paint.

There are a number of ways to create art in a digital format, there really is no right or wrong way, it is all up to the individual artist.  My background is a lifetime spent working with traditional art materials – graphite, charcoal, colour pencils, pastels, acrylics and oils – and I utilize all this experience and knowledge I have gained working with traditional art mediums to paint digitally.  I use a Wacom Intuos 4 digital graphics tablet and electronic art pen and the powerful real media emulation program Corel Painter XI to literally paint just like I do with traditional mediums, just electronically.  The Painter program allows me to choose the type of medium (charcoal, pastels, watercolours, oils etc), the size and type of brush and blenders I wish to use, as well as the support I want to paint on such as canvas, sanded pastel papers, watercolour papers etc.

All of these variables respond just as they do with real life mediums in regards to the application, mixing and blending of colour.  The pressure sensitive tablet and pen records not only the movement of the pen (digital paintbrush) as I move my hand, but also the angle I hold the pen at, as well as the pressure that I apply to make each mark – essentially all of the variables that make a particular mark with traditional art materials are duplicated by the amazing technology that I have available to use.

The biggest difference for me between painting digitally and painting traditionally are all positive – the lack of mess, no wasted time setting up, lack of fumes & toxic ingredients (an important factor when you have auto-immune issues), no paintbrushes to clean, no wasted paint, no running out of the perfect colour mix, being able to paint for five minutes at a time if that is all I have available or if I unexpectedly get interrupted.  Probably more important to me personally as an artist though, is that painting digitally has allowed my creativity to flourish in a way that has never happened with traditional art mediums – I put this down to working photo realistically which is very time consuming and mentally draining.

With digital painting I am free to follow the slightest hint of inspiration for trying something new, knowing that I can always go back to the last saved copy if that particular path of inspiration comes to a dead end.  This is certainly not something I ever tried with traditional mediums for fear of completely destroying dozens of hours of work on a painting.  LOL so I should probably add ‘liberating’ to the list of reasons that I love digital painting so much!

There is so much more that I could write about digital painting, but I will leave that for another post!

This is a painting I finished recently of a lovely grey arab photographed by fellow artist, Cathy Sheeter.  I havn’t given this one a title yet, so if you have any good ideas, I would love to hear them!

Finished digital painting of a grey arab horse, © 2010 Michelle Wrighton

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‘Summer Heat’ is an original painting based on a photo I took of my Standardbred gelding Tommy in our back paddock last summer.  I avoided putting too much detail in the painting and chose warm yellow and orange hues to really capture the feeling of a hot summers day in rural Australia.

Summer Heat - modern contemporary equine art by Michelle Wrighton

Summer Heat - Close up

‘Summer Heat’ is available for sale as art prints and gifts items in my Redbubble and Zazzle shops, and signed prints are available for sale in my Etsy shop Art By Michelle