"Portrait of Pharaoh Hound" Painting

Working from my studio at home I create realistic dog portraits using photos as reference. With my understanding of dogs and their distinguishing features, I can allow their personality, and not only their race specifics, to show. My work is done in oils on linen, cardboard or panels offering traditional style paintings, and I take my inspiration and passion from the Old Dutch Masters, although my particular influences are the European animal painters George Stubbs and Carl Reichert. I began painting animals while practicing old master techniques during my studies in art conservation. Thus, I base my portraits on a study in detail of the subject and I build up the surface with many thinly applied layers of oil paint to develop depth, shape, colour and light. When painting dogs there is a great joy in paying attention to minute details such as the texture of the coat, the shape of the nose, whiskers, ears and eye-colour, all to create a true picture of an individual. My aim is to discover and create portraits of every single dog breed.