TOBY the Jack Russell

When my daughter got a Jack Russell puppy a few years ago, she asked me to draw him in coloured pencil for her.  Here you can see the stages of the drawing.

Drawing in colour pencils has always been one of my favourite mediums for portraits of some kind.  I've only ventured into painting portraits in the last year.

Father and Sons

In the last post I put a photograph of myself working on a portrait of a father and his sons.  I did this painting in July 2010 from a photograph which was taken of the three at one of the Fifa World Cup soccer games in Port Elizabeth, South Africa.

This was my first attempt at painting a portrait.  Prior to this I had only done portaits in pencil, pastel or coloured pencils.

I was very pleased with the result and so was the client.

Love to Paint

My name is Vanessa Bentley. I've been drawing and painting since I can first remember. I did art as a subject through school and went and studied art when I completed school as well.

However, getting married and having children slowed my art down. I've been a single parent since 1995 and that also put a damper on my painting. So I have not done many paintings over the years.

My children are now all grown up and over the last few years I started painting again. I will be sharing my past and current work with you in this blog. I hope you will enjoy what I have to offer.