A lovely part of my work as an animal portrait painter is when a client gets in touch regarding a memorial portrait. It’s such an honour to be asked to produce an artwork of an owner’s much missed pet and this latest portrait is of a beautiful Border Collie called Jack, whose eyes just melted my heart.
I’m pleased to say that Jack’s owner and family were very happy with his portrait and hopefully it will bring a bit of comfort to them.
Well it’s turning into a fairly busy year, exhibition-wise. There are a lot of available art exhibitions to submit work to, very tempting, but I’m trying to build my stocks up in between commissions, so I’ve limited myself to the following events…so far.
The Ludlow Art Society and Association of Animal Artists exhibitions are on at the moment, Ludlow actually closes today and I’m delighted to write that ‘Barb’ sold at that one, yay! The Rose Paterson gallery at Weston Park near Shifnal, UK is the setting for the AAA exhibition and it makes for a grand day out, as the grounds are gorgeous, the work on show is amazing and the café does a great flat white!
In a month or so, my donated 5” x 7” ‘postcard’ will be displayed in Vancouver, alongside many others, in the annual Twitter Art Exhibition – monies raised will benefit the Urban Native Youth Association – so if you’re in that Canadian neighbourhood, don’t miss it.
Then later in the year, I’ll be taking part in H-Arts which is the Herefordshire arts festival here in the UK and I’ll be exhibiting alongside a collective of local artists in our village church… very exciting!
Here are some of my submissions to the various exhibitions.
Exhibitionitis – is that a thing, is there a cure?!
Well what a year this has been – most of us will be glad to see the back of it and are hoping for a much improved 2021, but one of the more uplifting events in 2020 was a scheme created by artist Tom Croft to thank our NHS Heroes dealing with the Coronavirus Pandemic by gifting a portrait to them. Tom invited artists to offer free portraits of NHS workers which took off in an amazing way and by November a book of some of the portraits was published by Bloomsbury Publishing (link is below). The royalties from the sale of each book go directly to the NHS.
I was very lucky to be included in this important and poignant record of what has been an extraordinary year and my portrait of Megan Cavanagh, a young nurse from Liverpool, sits proudly on page 159.
Meg and all the other NHS key workers fully deserve their Heroes status – we are indebted to them.
With Christmas just around the corner, there is still time to order the Portraits For NHS Heroes book. The portraits and accompanying stories are such an interesting and emotional read. A perfect gift this year.
https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/portraits-for-nhs-heroes-9781448218004/
Following on from my delight at having a painting selected for last year’s Paisley Art Institute’s annual exhibition which consequently sold, I am absolutely chuffed to bits to let you know that I have been selected for this year’s PAI exhibition too.
‘Pug Dug’, acrylic on canvas panel, will be taking part and I couldn’t be prouder!
Exhibition runs from 7 September – 20 October 2019 at the Piazza, Central Way, Paisley, PA1 1EL, Scotland.
‘Pug Dug’
I think we all need a bit of cheering up now and again in this mad, mixed up world of ours and how better to thank our four (and two) legged friends who always bring a smile and provide unconditional love, than with a day to celebrate them.
Happy National Pet Day!
This oil painting is a more ‘formal’ version of an earlier study of one of Edinburgh Zoo’s chimps called Louis who lives amongst the group in the Budongo Trail at the zoo. I added the wooden platform Louis was perusing the world from and a sky blue background to give a bit of interest, but hopefully the viewer is taken in by the gaze of this wonderful primate. What’s he thinking?
‘Louis’ – Oil on canvas, 30x24cm.
Back in May, I blogged about having a painting accepted for the Paisley Art Institute’s Annual Exhibition in Glasgow, well I’m very happy to let you know that my little ‘Siamese’ painting actually sold. This is the first time I have entered a major exhibition and was knocked out to have a painting accepted, but the icing on the cake was when I visited the show with a friend, only to find a small red dot on my label! Yay!
The gallery was extremely quiet and echo-ey so my friend and I had to do silent ‘whooping’ and slow motion jumping up and down so as not to disturb any of the viewing public!!
This Unison pastel painting on Pastelmat is of my studio assistant, looking pensive. I like slightly unusual poses of animals to work on – candid shots can produce interesting portraits.
Pastelmat paper by Clarefontaine is a slightly unusual surface to use, almost like a very, very fine sandpaper so that the ‘tooth’ of the paper texture holds the chalkiness of pastels. I found it a tricky paper to use to start with but the more I use it the easier it gets and the end result makes for a smooth pastel painting, great for details.
These two beauts, Kiku and Kura, are owned by friends who live in Australia. They both have faces full of character and expression and I couldn’t resist trying to capture them. They are done with soft pastels (Unison) on Pastelmat paper which has a good ‘tooth’ for holding pastel. Fortunately, the drawings/paintings survived their global journey from the UK to the other side of the planet and arrived unscathed within a fortnight. Amazing! Well done postal service.
This cat is not exactly my niece’s cat but she spotted it in the garden of her London flat and sent me the pic. Bengals are a fabulous breed, quite exotic and regal looking. They also make great subjects to paint, all those markings!
Rosie Mark Artwork 