Here I am looking out of the window on a particularly wet day, supposed to be working on a doggie commission but instead I am working on my blog.
Seems like a good idea, sort of.
So as my bio says I have been an artist for a loooooong time. Although there have been considerable breaks in my work, due to kids, poorly parents, work commitments - you name it, if I can come up with an excuse I will. Seriously though I've been creative all my life, when the kids were little and I didn't have much alone time I would write, I still do. There are at least five drafts of novels that really need to see the light of day.
But this latest venture, back into creating portraits started purely by accident. A colleague at work had recently lost their beloved dog, and on a whim I offered to do her a portrait, get me back into it.
At this point I made a decision, I would attempt to do one drawing a month to build up a decent portfolio and possibly look at other options such as prints etc and if I was still enjoying it as the year went on I would seriously push the portraits and maybe do it full-time.
Little did I realise just what this would lead to. The boss was retiring and as a leaving gift it was suggested that I do a portrait of his labradoddle 'Hugo' I thought why not.
Then someone else wanted their children doing, someone else their parents, another their dogs and so on.
So I started charging, not a lot as they were helping me build up my portfolio. So here we are in August and so far I have completed twice what I set out to do and have made a little on the way. The list of commissions is growing from other sources now, so we will see what happens. All in all though a very positive start.
