Dog Paintings

Jack at the Beach

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Digital Painting of a German Wire-Haired Pointer

German Wire Haired Pointer

“Otis”

Tan & White smooth coat

Jack Russell Terrier

Original acrylic painting

8″x10″ on 1.8cm deep gallery wrapped canvas

$135.00 (includes shipping)

10% of your investment in this artwork will be donated to Russell Rescue

"Otis" original acrylic painting by Michelle Wrighton

The painting is continued on all four edges and is ready to hang.

*The copyright watermark is a digital addition to the image below and is not on the original painting.

“Otis” is also available on merchandise and prints, and this is the first time this original painting from my personal collection has been offered for sale.

“Grey Ghost”

11″ x 14″

Artists Colour Pencil on Drafting film

by

Michelle Wrighton

"Grey Ghost" Weimaraner portrait by Michelle Wrighton

This colour pencil painting received an Honourable Mention at the 2007 Kelmscott Show, which was quite an honour considering that it was the only non-human artwork in its category!

LOL, I tend to walk to the beat of my own drum and don’t always follow tradition (self taught artist and all that;) I consider much of the art that I produce as ‘portraits’, the fact that they are non-human is not really relevant in my humble opinion, so I went ahead and entered this one in the ‘Portraits’ category (the rules didn’t stipulate which species the portraits had to be of, so I thought it was a reasonable option).  LOL the judge either agreed with me, or was also a dog lover as well.  I did win a couple of first prizes in other categories with other animal art I had entered, but the ‘Highly Commended – Portraits’ award for this one was pretty sweet;)

Two new dog breed portraits have now been added to the Dogs gallery, a Shiba Inu and another Shar-Pei (I just can’t resist wrinkles!). Both of these are color pencil/acrylic on drafting film.

Suki - Shiba Inu Pet Portrait

Aspen - Shar-Pei Painting

Buy Art prints and cards featuring this artwork from

Sourced from: michellewrighton.com (© Copyright All Rights Reserved 2009.)

This is a small acrylic painting I am working on of Gilley, a rescue Greyhound from the UK. Greyhounds have the most beautiful, liquid, expressive eyes that are an absolute joy to paint. As a breed, Greyhounds have such a regal bearing that the deep purple background seemed appropriate for Gilley’s Pet Portrait.

With these smaller paintings, I am really trying to loosen up and capture the essence of the animal without being totally pre-occupied with capturing every last detail like I normally do in my pencil portraits.

I usually do my initial sketch on paper then transfer it to the canvas, but I thought I would just sketch straight onto the canvas this time.

But graphite on canvas dosn’t erase very well, so next time I will transfer my sketch the usual way.

Gilley’s face still need some more work and I need to finish painting the sides of the canvas as I have the painting continueing around the edges.

(8″x10″, acrylic on gallery wrapped canvas)

Michelle

Sourced from: michellewrighton.com (© Copyright All Rights Reserved 2009.)

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

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We lost our little girl Jack Russell Terrier over two years ago to a brain tumor. She was nearly 11 years old and such a gutsy, happy little dog – a true Jack Russell Terrier in every way. Even though I am a pet portrait artist, it took a long time for me to be able to do her portrait.

Created with soft pastels on black Art Spectrum sanded paper, this is one of those pieces that just seemed to paint itself and I am really pleased with the result. I can now really understand why many of my clients who have commissioned commemorative portraits of pets they have lost as it feels almost like having them back again, that probably sounds really strange, maybe its being able to see that familiar loving face every day. Of course a painting can never replace a dearly missed pet, but it certainly does help to heal the pain a little.

Jack Russell Terrier in Pastel

‘Harley’ in pastel: 9″x12″

At the moment I am working on a commemorative portrait of Cleo, a Bull Terrier cross. I had the choice to do it in graphite or colour and decided on graphite, I’m not quite sure why as apart from one ear she is a white dog, and rendering white fur on white paper with graphite is a bit of a challenge! I will post a picutre of Cleo’s portrait when it is finished.

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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

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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

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