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Our annual open studio event is underway in Lingfield. As usual it’s been very busy, lots of people have been to visit us. This year as well as Lois and myself we have a jeweller, Helen Morris-Clarke, who has her beautiful jewellery on show in the gallery alongside the paintings. Follow the link to take a look at this years show, as well as photos of the animals who had plenty of visitors themselves.

On Saturday we had a Pimms afternoon. It was a lovely sunny day and we had some wonderful food to go with our Pimms. People came all through the afternoon and into the evening to look at the gallery, have a Pimms and enjoy chatting in the sunshine in the garden.

We are open again this week until Sunday.

Here is my latest painting. A Springer Spaniel running around the garden with half a tree in her mouth. It certainly didn’t slow her down any!

I wanted to get the feel of a hot, sunny day into the painting. I used lots of warm colour, even in the shadows, and some thick paint in places too.
This is a 16×12 acrylic painting on board.

This painting is the first in a new series ‘dog in action’ paintings I hope to do over the summer.  I wanted to get the feeling of a sunny day on the beach and the sheer joy of running! I wanted a blast of colour with the light coming from behind him.

This was done on paper in acrylics. Here’s a close up detail.

This little print was inspired by a challenge to do something in black and white. Not my usual territory! I thought it would be easier to start with a black and white dog, and Bull Terriers are beautiful dogs, so I wanted to try and capture Boo in black and white. In the end I couldn’t quite manage it, I had to leave her pink tongue! But it was fun to try doing something very different and I’m pleased with the end result. I think it has captured her smile.

This is a portrait of Prince, a chocolate lab. I really enjoyed painting him and hope to do another painting of him soon. This painting is a 20×16 acrylic on canvas.

Here’s the painting in progress….

And finally, the finished painting….

A couple of details….

Another bullmastiff painting, this is Liam and Truman In The Snow. I love bullmastiffs standing in the snow, there’s something about the colour of their coats against the whiter snow and the blue, lilac shadows that is so lovely to paint. These two handsome boys are father and son.

This is a 22×16 acrylic painting on stretched canvas.

A close up detail of the canvas.

Three beautiful French Bulldog puppies curled up asleep. OK, I know they’re too cute for words but I couldn’t resist them. And it was interesting to play with colour in this painting.

a close up…

I have adjusted the format of The Look Out, making it longer and making Shelby a bit smaller in the painting. I’ve done a fair bit of work on her coat and expression and experimented with the addition of a pair of eagles flying through the pass.

This is the finished painting. I’ve adjusted the mountains behind Shelby into a more pleasing shape and added some autumn trees in the pass.

Here’s a close up detail