Jaguar in a tree

As I painted the parrot, my client was thinking that he would like something else a little larger on the other side of the room to balance it out, tying into the same theme.
He wants something a little more stylised this time but maintaining the same harmony with the parrot. I have decided to do a stylised tree in the corner of the room with a fairly realistic jaguar sleeping on one of the branches. I didn't have to spend long persuading him!
I have only drawn the design in pencil on paper so stay tuned for pictures of the work in progress as I will begin painting this afternoon.

Blue Macaw

A friend of a friend asked me to paint something for his son's wall. He wanted something colourful from nature that his seven-year-old boy wouldn't grow out of. As the father is from Brazil, I suggested some tropical Amazonian icons and showed him a few possibilities.
He chose the blue macaw in flight because it wouldn't look strange in isolation - many other plants and animals would need to be a part of a scene or there would at least need to be an implied ground level somewhere.
This photo is of the work in progress that I took as I was waiting for the paint to dry; the client says he will take a photo of the finished product to send me soon (my battery died)! Since then, I have added some orange shadows to the yellow of its wing and belly, and some light blue highlights to the blue parts of the back wing and top of the tail.
The painting took me about 6 hours, with a few half-hour breaks as I needed to wait for the base coats to dry before adding details. I charged £80.
When my client's son saw the parrot, he squealed with excitement and after a while pretended that we were in a jungle. It was so rewarding for me to see the twinkling in his eyes. Hopefully this macaw will help to keep this young Londoner in touch with his heritage!

Unicorn design

Here is the design for a unicorn I created in Photoshop. This one would look beautiful dancing from cloud to cloud amongst the stars!

A Watercolour for A Friend

It was my friend Valentina's birthday last weekend. She is quite spiritual and adores magical woodland creatures...and a good beer! This is a portrait of her as a fairy, using her wand to extract the sweet nectar of Leffe from a flower.

In addition to murals, I often draw and paint portraits for friends and family - sometimes on commission as well. If you would like something similar for a loved one, I would love the challenge! £120 for an A3 watercolour portrait like this one.