The painting of Checky was a birthday present to his owner Caitlin. She was celebrating her 21st birthday during the lock down in May. Her parents wanted to gift her something special and since Caitlin is ‘animal mad’ as they described her, they decided to commission portraits of her with her pets. I had a lot of photographs of past and present pets she owns including Checky who was her favourite. Checky sadly passed away and is missed so much by Caitlin and her family. We decided on two portraits, one a montage drawing of Caitlin with her pets around her, and second a painting of Checky on his own.
Checky’s painting is 30 x 20 cm in size painted with acrylics on stretched canvas. I had one photograph to work from and it was lovely. I just love the profile photo of Checky, he looks so happy there just enjoying the sunshine. The palm in the background adds another dimension to the portrait.
Reference 
Work in progress on Checky
The montage was a large drawing 50 x 60 cm in size. I worked form a number of photographs and first created a digital version of the layout. Once the client was happy with the layout, I proceeded to draw each character in the montage. I used graphite pencil for each pet and coloured pencil for Caitlin’s portrait which was the centre of focus in the middle of the portrait.
The image was quite large and I couldn’t scan it in my scanner, so I had to take a photograph of the portrait.
The clients were very happy with the finished portraits and Caitlin now keeps the painting of Checky beside her bed.
Caitlin was just so delighted with her pictures . She burst into tears of joy with the one of Checky. I have attached some photos and she has Checky by her bedside ! Thank you so much you have brought all her animals to life and as she says “ the pictures will last forever !”
Siobhan, Portarlington, Ireland
It was great to see photos of Caitlin with the portraits. I rarely get to see the reaction of how my portraits are received.
I took some photographs of Checky’s painting when it was finished. I am also including a photographs of the side of the canvas.
