Pet Portraits Are Back
It has been a crazy long time since I did a blog post. I have thought long and hard about what to write and whether I should disclose why I have been so quiet. After some thought, and if you follow my facebook page, you may already know why. So I think it would do no harm to mention it here as well. In 2021 I had a nervous breakdown. It rocked me to my core and not only did I lose my ability to do my pet portraits, I could paint full stop. It felt like had lost myself. It has been the toughest 18 – 20 months of my life, but gradually I am finding my feet again. Including returning to creating my beloved pet portraits!
It was a long journey back and a real struggle to learn fall in love with my art again. It started to fall into place after I discovered an online semi abstract art course by Sarah Watson. I signed up and started to learn a different way to paint. That was quickly followed with a course in lino printing – you all remember doing that at school right?
After a few months of learning to be creative for the pure joy of it, I finally felt I could dip my toe back into the world of pet paintings. It was a cautious asn scary step. I didn’t know what it would bring. Tears or joy. However I proceeded with trepidation and started a horse portrait. A very patient client had been waiting for me and was happy for me to take my time with her painting It created a lot f mixed emotions. Having been out of painting them for a year, would I still be able to? Could I create a likeness? Did I still have the confidence? Would my client even like it? It was, thankfully a success. The confidence wasn’t back a 100% yet and it wasn’t long before it was tested to the maximum by being asked to paint a huge dog portrait. Not only was it large but it had a comples background with not so great photos and a not so long completion date. They were defintely workable but created a challenge to get to size I wanted. I decided to be honest with my client and explain my siutauton with regard to my return to work and he was so understanding. I took the leap and accepted Maisie’s pet portrait. It turned out I relished the challenge and it turned out better than I expected and my client was also delighted. Phew I thnk most artists are our harshest critics at the best of times, never mind when you are recovering from a nervous break down and creating a pet portraits of peoples beloved pets!
This undoubtably helped my confidence grow some more. I am now back accepting pet portraits part time. I cant quite manage full time yet. It’s too much and I am also terrified of loosing the magic again. To help balance I am exploring my new found love of lino printing and also trying to learn to work in a loose, more expressive style. The kingfisher is one piece I created recently and is for sale. Prints and cards and all my lino prints can be found for sale in my Etsy store Sarah Leigh Art
If you would like to browse more of my work please feel free to browse the pet portrait galleries