Pet Portraits || Maltese Watercolour

We have a wall in our house dedicated to our family, a collection of drawings and paintings including treasured teddy bears, our two rabbits and two cockatiels. My husband recently mentioned that he'd like his late dogs added to it, and I agreed it would be a lovely addition.

December ended up slipping away from me (maybe I made too many tree decorations?!), but on 23rd December I managed to find an hour to do this watercolour painting in time for Christmas. I love my brushes that have handles filled with water, they make quick watercolour paintings that bit easier.

White fur is always a challenge, but I looked for the tones of the shadows in my reference photo and tried to pick them out in the painting. My technique has certainly improved from an earlier attempt, and I'm pleased and relieved that my husband can tell which dog is which, and even get a sense of their character from the images. I recently watched a video about how an artist, in this case a cartoonist, emphasised the importance of embodying a character as you draw them, and pulling the facial expression you are attempting to capture - I think this is marvelous advice, even when painting animals!

Puppy || Sew Cute to Cuddle

Hello! Yup, I'm still alive. Absence makes you grow fonder of me, right?! I have been working on lots of creating of things, but I'm not going to be able to share some of them for a while, so please bear with some patchy posting... Sneaky peeks on Facebook as always :)

I made this cute little puppy dog for my niece's 7th Birthday, and s/he was a real hit, being named Flopster!

The pattern is called Brody the Dog, and is from Sew Cute to Cuddle... The author, Mariska Vos-Bolman, has an Etsy store, but I found it more financially viable to buy a copy of her book from Amazon :) She has designed some beautiful patterns, and the book contains clear instructions and helpful diagrams, as well as sections on fabrics and techniques. The patterns are provided to scale in the book, so there is no need for pesky enlarging. I did find bits of this design fiddly, and you can see some of my curves aren't exactly smooth... But I would use more of her patterns :)

I used some fabric and felt I had left lying around, and also stitched on a cute little mouth. I had the idea that all dogs need a toy to play with, so stitched a small bone from felt. I have tied a piece of ribbon around both the bone and a paw, meaning it can be removed for play but stored safely!

Freestyle Embroidery - Dog Handkerchief

I haven't done a lot of completely freestyle embroidery before, but I've always wanted to stitch a design on to a handkerchief, and this made the perfect Christmas present for a relative!

I based the design on my in-law's dog, Millie. The stitching took a lot longer than I expected it to though haha, but then it's not surprising given that the white fur alone is created from 5 or 6 different shades of thread! I love the result, but I might need some time before I do any more, certainly with this level of detail!

Millie and Sam [Dog Photography]

[You may wish to click on the first image to look through these as a slideshow!]