I am very lucky I get to do what I do. Being an artist has always been a dream of mine and now I have been an internationally selling pet portrait artist for over 10 years!
Working from home takes some discipline, far to many distractions, such as the television, biscuits, my dog and sometimes the children, although they are both at school now.
My day starts with the hurried job of getting the kids off to school! Any Mum knows how much fun the school run is! With that done it’s time to settle don to work.
First thing I sit down and check emails and deal with any potential pet portrait commissions. Hopefully I get a few enquiries in my inbox! Then it’s on the best bit of the day. The painting.
I get asked a lot if working in pastels is actually painting, not drawing. Yes technically it is a painting if over 70% of the paper is covered in the medium, in my case pastel. If not it would be classed as a sketch. I tend to find my most productive painting time is the between 9 and 1pm. So that is when I spend most of my time working on the pet portraits. I take a lot of breaks as the concentration is quite intense, but that is OK as I drink copious amounts of tea anyway, so with constant boiling of the kettle and subsequent trips to the loo my eyes get plenty of rest!
After lunch about 1pm I go back to my emails, check those and also do any house work or frame and pack any portraits waiting to go out. I don’t know if you are like me, but I get quite sleepy after I have eaten so focusing on a portrait after I have eaten won’t work.
After all that it is school run time again. I often fit in another couple of hours work after I have collected the children and then of course it is time to feed the hungry monsters! Sometimes if I feel motivated I will work in the evening while my husband gets the kids to bed. If I get on a roll I have been known to work on until the small hours of the morning. I love that time of night when no-one else is awake and it’s just me in my arty bubble!
Sometimes I will spend my days on admin, like today I have been working on updating my galleries on my website, writing some blogs (this one of course) and photographing any stock that I might have to add to my Etsy shop that I am trying to put together.
Most of my days follow a similar pattern, but I love being my own boss and I hope I may get the chance to do you a pet portrait in the future.
Don’t forget you can visit my cat portraits here, dog portraits here and horse portraits here.