Hi!  My name is Michelle Wrighton, I am an award winning Western Australian artist specializing in Canine Fine Art.  I have undertaken pet portrait commissions for a number of years, and my online portfolio of commissioned pet portraits and wildlife artwork and photography can be viewed at http://michellewrighton.com.

I am a fairly versatile artist and prefer to work in a number of mediums including graphite, charcoal, artist colour pencils, soft pastels, acrylic and oils.  I love animals, and enjoy portraying their personality and character in my art – but dogs are my favourite subjects to portray, their uniqueness, expressiveness and personality truly make them man (and woman’s) best friend!  I have three dog’s of my own and would have more if I could:)

My commissioned artwork is created in a highly detailed and very realistic (almost photographic) style, and to achieve this level of detail, each piece of my artwork takes from 10 to 60+ hours to complete, depending on the size, medium and detail involved.

The Dog Paintings blog is a project that I have planned for several years to allow me to further my development as an artist by creating a series of smaller format and less time intensive dog paintings to experiment and explore artistic styles other than photo-realism and have a little bit of fun!

Yes, us artists can be a bit weird;)  Many of us take a ‘relaxing break’ from our regular (paid) art by creating more art in our free time just for ‘fun’.  I love dogs of all shapes, sizes, breeds and cross-breeds, so my subject matter will remain the same, I’ll just be working more expressively in the project work rather than in my normal tightly detailed style.

I could simply create these paintings and store them in a box in my studio, but as a piece of my heart and soul go into every piece of art that I create, I would much rather they go to good homes where they will be enjoyed and appreciated!  Therefore I will offer them for sale to dog lovers and art collectors at affordable prices with a percentage of each sale being donated to a dog rescue group to help dogs in need.

I welcome submission of dog photos for reference, however the paintings in this project are not intended to be dog portrait commissions as such.  I personally (as an artist, mother and wife) need this project to be fun, enjoyable, stress and pressure free which means no time deadlines:)

I will set up an email newsletter to advise the next few dogs that I am planning to paint, so if you submit a photo of your dog, this will give you an indication of when your dogs’ painting will be ready to view – there is no obligation for you to purchase the finished painting so please don’t be afraid to send me your favourite photos!

Michelle