My current commission, as I mentioned yesterday is a GSD running across the beach. I love the sea side and I often get asked to put beach scenes in my pet portraits. I have some horse portraits featuring the sea. This one below was one of my favourites. This beautiful andalusian mare was just itching to be painted in front of a wild, stormy seascape.

This handsome stallion was another, my client specifically requested the beach. This also has proven to be one of my most popular horse portraits.

This dog portrait was painted on the beach, no sea, but lots of beautiful sand.

I can pretty much add or takeaway any background in a painting. Whilst the terrier portrait was painted directly from the photo, both the above portraits had pretty boring backgrounds, one being in a sand school and the other I think was a farm building. I took those out and added the sea!

I have not done much watercolours recently as I have been very busy with other work and helping my husband recover from his op. However this cheetah family has just been scanned in. I actually painted them nearly a month ago! I will be releasing prints, mugs and coasters with this image on very soon, so let me know if you are interested in purchasing anything.

Now on to my dilemma. I often add a black outline to my watercolours to make the pop, I am always torn as the whether to do so. Just like I am with this wolf, what do you think? I do think it makes them really stand out, but I like him like this too! Either way I have a scan, so I can release prints of both should I decide to add the black.