Michelle Wrighton Fine Art and Photography

I forgot that I had a progress photo of Precious on my computer.  Precious’s portrait is being created with a strong contemporary feel to go with her funky and fashionable patent pink colour:)  I have to admit the shine of the patent pink collar is the hardest part to get right.  LOL its not something that I usually paint, but I am sure it will work out in the end.

Sorry about the flash glare on this one, oil paintings are proving as difficult to photograph as graphite!

There is still a fair bit of work to do to get Precious and her patent collar looking perfect, but I won’t be able to work on this until I get a couple of commissions wrapped up.

This is my latest commission, a graphite portrait of a gorgeous black Labrador Retriever. Hasn’t she got the sweetest looking face? I’m very pleased with how this turned out although getting good digital images of graphite work is near on impossible!

This scanned image is about the closest I can get to the original, although alot of the delicate shading in the original is not evident, particularly in the highlighted areas.

Labrador Breed Information

Labrador Retrievers are a loving, affectionate, intelligent breed that is one of the most popular dog breeds in Australia. Highly intelligent, loyal, willing, good natured and excellent with children they are ideal companions for families. Labradors are easily trained and need to be treated as one of the family, otherwise like many breeds they can become destructive. Labradors are medium sized energetic dogs that need a fair bit of excercise. Their smooth short haired coat, which can be black, yellow or chocolate in colour, is easy to groom and they should be bathed only when necesary. They have a life expectancy of about 10-12 years

Labradors originated in New Foundland where they were originally known as St John Dogs or the Lesser New Foundland (Newfoundland’s are another breed of dog). Labrador is a peninsular in north-eastern North America situated between Hudson Bay, the Atlantic and the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Labradors were originally developed to assist the fishermen in towing in nets as well as working in the snow and ice. These dogs were taken to England where they were bred as gun dogs and retrievers. Labs are easily trained and their intelligence and lovely disposition makes them very suitable for work as guide, service and customs dogs.

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Michelle

Wow Christmas seems to have come around so quickly this year! I’ve finished my last Christmas commission, a commermorative portrait of a beautiful Australian Kelpie called Tas who recently passed away. This portrait was done on Art Spectrum blue-grey Colourfix paper, 9 x 12 inches with a pastel underpainting and all the top layers of detail done in artists colour pencils.

Breed Profile: The Australian Kelpie

The Australian Kelpie was developed in the 1800′s by a small group of Australian Pastoralists from the inter-mixing of offspring of three pairs of working sheepdogs from Scotland.

Kelpies are an alert, eager, highly intelligent, loving, gentle, easily trained, loyal and devoted breed. Although devloped as a sheepdog – a job at which they excel, Kelpies also make wonderful family pets for people who can accomodate their mental and physical activity needs with pleanty of excercise and activities that allows them to use their intelligence, like Obedience training, agility, tracking or other dog sports.

The Australian Kelpie is of medium size, with males usually between 46 – 51 cm (18 – 20 inches) and females betwee 43 – 48 cm (17 – 19 inches).

The Kelpie has a moderately short coat (imagine somehwhere between a German Shepherd Dog and a Doberman), and has seven different colour variations: Red, Red and Tan, Black, BLack and tan, Chocolate, fawn and Smoke blue.

Follow the link below to see photos of different Australian Kelpie dogs:

http://images.google.com.au/images?q=Australian+Kelpie&hl=en&btnG=Search+Images

Now I just have to finish and frame Amarok’s portrait and I can have a short holiday over Christmas and do some ‘non-commission’ art for myself:)

I hope you all have a Happy and Safe Christmas and New Year, wherever you may be in the world!

Cheers

Michelle

An example of my artwork. This piece recently won an award in the first art show I have ever entered.