PET PENCIL PORTRAITS – A BEAUTIFUL PIECE OF ART
Owning a pet pencil portrait of your adored pet can bring a lot of joy. A portrait drawing or your cat, your dog, even your hamster or gerbil, can evoke such happy memories at every glance. A lot of people order a portrait or their pet to celebrate their life, in memory of a well loved and devoted pet. Whatever type of pet you own, a pet portrait drawing of it will give you an everyday reminder of how much joy and fun they brought to your life. If you have a particular portrait drawing in mind you would like to order, please feel free to send me an email and I will be happy to talk over your ideas with you.
PET PENCIL PORTRAITS – CAPTURING THE PERFECT PHOTO
Modern technology has come on leaps and bounds in recent years and shows no signs of slowing, year on year the technology in phone cameras and digital cameras has become so well defined, capturing the perfect image through a lens has never been easier, delivering amazing results. With this in mind capturing the perfect pet portraits can still take a little planning and organising. Capturing a portrait of your dog or cat with a camera, dependent on the breed, can be somewhat of a challenge. For the more lively breeds almost impossible, but with the assistance of the latest tech is easier than its ever been.
If you have one of the more lively breeds of pets, it may be worth tiring them out first with their favourite toy or a long walk, this will help when you just want to have them sit or laid down in order to capture them on camera. The bonuses with digital cameras, phone or SLR, is you can snap away to your hearts content, taking literally hundreds of shots, and once you have done that, you can sit back and review them afterwards, and I can guarantee you will have caught some amazing pictures.
When you’re photographing your pet, try and shoot them in different lighting conditions, indoors, outdoors, with spot lighting etc, you will get a really good variety of images this way. Each image will highlight different aspects of them emphasising their fur, dazzling eyes, or a cute aspect their appearance.
PET PENCIL PORTRAITS – USING A PHONE CAMERA
This is probably the quickest and easiest way to capture some great photos of your pets. Most people are never more than arms length away from their phone, so when your sat in the evening relaxing watching tv or chatting, that may be the perfect moment when your pet is looking at its most relaxed and cutest. The phone cameras of today are also one of the cheapest ways to get some great photos. Cameras nowadays have two and three separate lenses to help capture every detail of your pet for me to use as the perfect reference for your pet pencil drawing. Capturing this level of detail in a photo will translate to a highly photorealistic drawing once I commence work on the artwork. I capture the finest of detail and if the reference is extremely clear this will only be emphasised when created at a pencil drawing.
PET PENCIL PORTRAITS – USING AN DIGITAL SLR CAMERA
Using a digital camera is the more professional approach and in some respects can have a slight advantage over phone cameras. They are slightly more versatile in terms of the settings and can make the more compromised scenarios, such as dark spaces, easier to capture a good image of. If you are using a digital SLR, you may also use light meters and lighting units, this is a far more professional approach with more often than not professional results.
PET PENCIL PORTRAIT TYPES
PET PENCIL PORTRAITS – DOGS
This has to be my most popular type of pet portrait ordered, and as a nation of dog lovers with over 9 million in the UK it’s no big surprise. Capturing the perfect pet portrait of your dog can make for a wonderful piece of artwork that will be a lasting memory of your best friend. A lot of pet portraits I undertake are quite often the standard type of pose, the dog sat cute looking towards the camera. That said I have done some of dogs running or doing agility, quite often to reflect the true personality and breed of the dog. Looking through the photos you have, you may have that one special picture that captures your dogs personality, with an adorning look of love and devotion towards you that melts your heart, or just one that every time you look at it makes you smile and evokes great memories. Whichever it is, I will be happy to talk over things with you to help capture the perfect pet portrait of your dog.
PET PENCIL PORTRAITS – CATS
Another popular type of pet portrait, the trusty feline friend. As with dogs there are a great many breeds of cat, all with their own characteristics and physical traits. From the popular tabby cat through to the mancoon, I have done many pet portraits of cats, all with their own individual character reflected through the portrait drawing. If photographing a new pose in some respects it may be easier to catch the perfect shot of your cat as they can be a little more rested than the average pet dog. You may have a whole bank of favourite photos, maybe 2-3 you would like combining into a pet portrait, thats no problem, sometimes pet owners can’t choose that one photo that says everything about their feline friend. Get in touch I will be happy to talk over things with you, and I can guarantee we will create the perfect pet portrait of your cat.
PET PENCIL PORTRAITS – HORSES
A typical pet portrait of your horse can have a variety of scenarios, maybe just a head and neck shot close up to show its wonderful face and character. Maybe its one of the horse grazing in a colourful field, relaxing with a wonderful landscape surrounding it. Or maybe its an action shot of you or someone riding the horse, at a jumping event or just on a leisurely ride? Whichever choice of picture you choose all horse portraits have a very regal appearance, reflecting the strength and prowess of the wonderful animal.
PET PENCIL PORTRAITS IN COLOURED PENCIL
Unlike with oils or other mediums I find using high quality pencil crayons allows me to capture smallest of detail and give an extremely photorealistic finish to all my coloured pencil portraits. As I work on an iPad i can zoom into the reference photo to 300% allowing me to focus on the smallest details as individual hairs, using
pencil crayon lets me translate this very accurately to create a pet portrait that has over the years become a style I am recognised by.
PET PENCIL PORTRAITS – HOW LONG DO THEY TAKE?
This varies slightly dependent on what size and style you would like for your pet portrait. As a rough gauge it can take between 2-8 weeks, obviously the more detailed and complex the composition the longer it may take, but if you are opting for a isolated pet portrait, maybe of a cat or dog front on at A3 in full colour, this can be achieved in 2 weeks. Please give me a call in the first instance to discuss things as my order book does get quite full at certain times of the year so lead times may be longer.
PET PENCIL PORTRAITS FROM PHOTOS PRICES
The cost of a pet portrait from a photo depends on a few factors. First is the size of portrait you would like and second is the style your are wanting, ie black and white or full colour.To give a rough idea of costs, a black and white pet portrait at 10x8inches starts from £150, this goes all the way up to £1500 for an A2 full colour multiple subject pencil portrait. Obviously there are quite a few variables in between and the thing I suggest most people to do, is give me a quick call or drop me an email and I can give you exact costs and also include the additional prices for framing and postage.