Animal & Pet Portraits

May 3, 2019 by Shannon Fennell Leave a comment

I finished my latest commissioned pet portrait and it has arrived at its new home in Alabama so I can share it.

This is Snowy:

It was commissioned as a companion piece to another one I did of her “brother” Joseph:

I do these freehand – sketch in pencil and then finish with Micron pen. These two were done on 7 x 10″ 98 lb Canson Mix Media paper.

The difference in the background colour in the images is because the top one was scanned and the bottom one photographed.

Here is a work in progress shot. Sketched in and starting the pen work.

I am working on my animal drawing skills. I’ve always been pretty good with it, but practise always shows a huge improvement in my abilities. Capturing expression is the biggest thing – that is what makes a pet look like YOUR pet!

This is another cat portrait I did – this is Honey, my sister’s cat. This is also Micron pen, then coloured added with pencil crayon.

I do dogs too. The breeds have so many variations that it can be a bit more challenging to work on, but I am improving with practise.

This is my buddy Brian. This one was done for one of those on-line challenges, which that day was “use only words”. So, all of the marks on the paper are words – written or printed words. The close-up of the nose shows this clearly. It was a fun challenge.

This one was done in my usual method, sketch in pencil and finish with Micron pen. This one was over two years ago when I decided to start working more seriously on improving my skills.

This is Brian in “person”

I keep practising doing different creatures and adding colour. So far sticking with pencil crayons and watercolour. I really want to learn how to use the pencil crayons to create super realistic work – and that is a steep learning curve! I’ve been watching YouTube videos which is very rare for me, but it is something I need to see being done to figure it out. I’ve also picked up some excellent books at the used book store.

I am hoping to be able to work on lots of animal drawings over the summer. My plan is to take masses of photos on my trip to South Africa, eSwatini and Mozambique (I leave in two-weeks!) that I can then draw and paint. I hope all the creatures will cooperate.