Michelle Wrighton Fine Art and Photography

Bosco at the Beach - Labrador Painting

Cards, laminated, matted and framed prints of “Bosco at the Beach” can be purchased from my Redbubble shop:

Apart from some minor adjustments that I might add in the next day or so, this is the (almost) completed portrait of our Chinese Shar-Pei, Tia.

Achieving depth and dimension with her black coat and all those wrinkles was a great challenge, but I thoroughly enjoyed working on this and I am really pleased with the resulting portrait, although I might need to get a better photograph in better light!

“Tia”

Pastels on Velour Art Paper

10″ x 14″

Tia - Shar Pei Pet Portrait in Pastels

2006

This is the reference photo I used for Tia’s portrait – as you can probably see I took this photo with the flash on (something that is not usually recommended), just to make sure that I could see all the curves and contours of her wrinkly face! Most of the photos I have of her are either very black, or if she is in full sunlight, her eyes will be closed, so using the flash was the best way to get a nice detailed photo, then it was simply a matter of making her fur darker than it appeared in the photo to make it look like my dog rather than the washed out/faded reference photo.

This Shar-Pei art pet portrait features on dog breed merchandise such as stationery, prints, greeting cards, tote bags and more.

Shar-Pei Breed Info: Shar-Pei’s are an ancient dog breed, and are still fairly rare, although thanks to tv commercials such as the toilet roll ad with the wrinkly puppy, “Rolly” they are becoming more popular.

The breed is best known for its wrinkled apprearance which is caused by the excess skin they have. generally puppies and young dogs appear to have more wrinkles as older dogs grow into their skin a little bit. (This is actually a good thing, as Shar-Pei’s do suffer from skin conditions do to the wrinkles and rough fur irritating the skin.)

The name “Shar-Pei” literally means “sand-skin”, or loosely translated to “sand-paper-like coat” which refers to the unique characteristics of the Shar-Pei coat – its roughness and its shortness. The Shar-Pei also has another distinctive characteristic that is shared with only one other breed, the Chow Chow (also a Chinese breed) – both breeds have a blue-black tongue!

Of course I am biased, but Shar-Pei’s are an incredible breed – totally devoted to their families, highly intelligent and excellent watch/guard dogs!

More information on the Shar-Pei breed can be found at http://www.sharpei.com.au/

Cheers

Michelle

I am thoroughly enjoying working with this velour paper with my pastels and I am really pleased with how this portrait of Marcus, a Long Haired Dachshund has turned out. I can see that my pastels and this velour support and quickly going to become my favourite medium for working in.

I couldn’t help myself, after finishing this one I have finally started a portrait of my own dog Tia, she is a black Shar-Pei and it is proving to be a very interesting challenge creating black wrinkles that look realistic! I will add a blog entry with her portrait when it is finished.

Where has this year gone? I can’t believe that it is nearly Christmas already and I am definitely not going to look at the last date that I updated this blog, so instead I will just share my latest piece, a pure pastel pet portrait painting on velour paper of a gorgeous Cavalier King Charles Spaniel.

This is the first time that I have used the German made Hahnemuhle velour pastel paper and I will definitely be using it again, it creates an incredible softness to the artwork that is particularly suited to animal portraiture.

This Cavalier King Charles Spaniel pet portrait features on dog breed merchandise such as stationery, prints, greeting cards, tote bags and more.

Michelle