Melanie’s Monthly News in November
November 30, 2023Welcome to Melanie’s Monthly News in November… and another month has flown by! We have been busy little bees working really hard on our portraits. Of course we will show them all to you really soon as some of them are Christmas gifts, one is a wedding gift and three are yet to be completed! We still have a few working weeks before we stop for the year but I will make sure I blog them all. We have some really special portraits and some amazing videos to share. The first news we have is that Lily was groomed this…
Can You Be A Successful Artist Without Social Media?
Today’s blog post is aimed at our artist followers and is almost a continuation of my previous blog post about social media. Since our Instagram hacking and our decision to delete of all of our social media, a question has…
Melanie’s Monthly News in October
Welcome to Melanie’s Monthly News in October and you could say it’s been quite the eventful month! As well as everything that has been happening (more about this below) we have been working hard behind the scenes still creating our…
Why we are NOT on social media anymore! Oh Dear!
Welcome to an unusual mid monthly news and a huge topic today – Why we are NOT on social media anymore! Oh Dear! I felt the need to explain what’s been happening… in case some of you thought Nicholas and…
Melanie’s Monthly News in September
Welcome to Melanie’s monthly news in September and before we dive into our antics, we have had a bit of a poorly Lily. She went to the vets for routine vaccinations and the vet, who was very thorough, found an…
Melanie’s Monthly News in August
Welcome to Melanie’s monthly news in August and I have to admit to being extremely behind on this months blog. There just seems to be something happening all the time. There is either something to do, somewhere to go or…
Melanie’s Monthly News in July
Welcome to Melanie ‘s Monthly News in July, where yet again time has flown. We have had a busy month, I haven’t taken any video this month, but I promise to try in August! The weather here hasn’t been all…
Melanie’s Monthly News in June
Welcome to Melanie’s monthly news in June, where another month has whizzed by! As you can see from our little video below, we have been away on a weeks holiday. We managed to visit family in Cornwall, friends in Devon,…
Melanie’s Monthly News in May
Welcome to Melanie’s Monthly News in May. I thought i’d start the blog off this time with a video tour of our garden. It’s looking so lovely at the moment. The weather has been beautiful, hot and sunny…so we are…
Melanie’s April Monthly News
Welcome to Melanie’s April monthly news and it is truly springtime in our cottage garden. The wood pigeons are cooing, the woodpecker has been tapping furiously, the Canada geese are flying over, we have seen the first swallow and the…
Melanie’s March Monthly News
Welcome to another Melanie’s March Monthly News. Thankfully things are a little happier here. Dad is home from Spain and recovering well, the car is still poorly (read last months blog post to hear about big dent in door!) but…
Melanie’s January & February News
Welcome to Melanie’s January & February News. Our Happy New Year 2023 blog post is long overdue this year. So much has happened in the last couple of months which is partly why I didn’t get time to do a…
Merry Christmas to Everyone!
Merry Christmas to Everyone – all of our clients, followers and prospective clients in 2023! Welcome to our last blog post of the year. Lily and I did a little Christmas message which you can play below. We hope that…
Melanie’s November Monthly News
Welcome to Melanie’s November Monthly News…Christmas is just around the corner!! Both Nicholas and myself have been really busy in the studio this month and we are still beavering away! We have a few paintings and drawings that we are…
Melanie’s October Monthly News
Welcome to Melanie’s October Monthly News with another update from here, both in and out of the studio. Nicholas and myself have been really busy finishing lots of portraits in pencils and oil. We aren’t really able to show very…
Melanie’s September Monthly News
Welcome to Melanie’s September Monthly News where another month has completely flown by! Nicholas has been working on a surprise portrait which will will be able to share in the not too distance future. He has now begun a beautiful…
Melanie’s August Monthly News
Welcome to Melanie’s August Monthly News, where another month has flown by. We hope that all of our readers are well and enjoying their summer (or winter) wherever you may be! We have had some wonderful weather this month, which…
Melanie’s July Monthly News
Welcome to Melanie’s July Monthly News! We hope this months ramblings find you well and having enjoyed July as much as we have! It’s been a busy month as per usual and we have been out and about quite a…
Melanie’s June Monthly News
Welcome to Melanie’s June Monthly News, and here we are in yet another month that has flown by. We have been busy in the studio, but have got out and about this month when the weather has allowed. We have…
Melanie’s May Monthly News
Welcome to Melanie’s May Monthly News. Another month has flown by and we have been getting up to quite a lot this month, with a few days out, lots of running and plenty of portraits being created. The first portrait…
Melanie’s April Monthly News
Welcome to Melanie’s April Monthly News. I cant quite believe I’m slightly more organised this month and the blog is actually coming out on time! Considering it has been a busy time with Nicholas having an April birthday to celebrate…
Melanie’s March Monthly News
Welcome to our Melanie’s March Monthly News. We hope that everyone is keeping still safe and well. In some uncertain times, we hope our blog post this month will bring a smile. So we start with our poor Lily, although…
Melanie’s February Monthly News
Welcome to Melanie’s February Monthly News, we hope that all of our readers and followers are all keeping well! Spring is on its way! We start this blog off with some beautiful daffodils from my dads garden. Daffodils always make…
Melanie’s January Monthly News
Welcome to Melanie’s January Monthly News! This year is going as fast as the last one went! Other than the quick blog post showing our Christmas tree and decorated cottage, I haven’t made a blog post for two months. A…
Happy Christmas & Happy New Year!
Welcome to our festive blog post – a very Happy Christmas & Happy New Year to you all! We have had a busy couple of months with portraits and we are now taking some well deserved time to ourselves. The…
Melanie’s October Monthly News
Boo! Welcome to Melanie’s October Monthly News and Happy Halloween to all! Well it’s safe to say Lily LOVES pumpkin!! My friend Jo and I carved my dads pumpkins this year, which were huge by the way, and Lily was…
Melanie’s September Monthly News
Welcome to Melanie’s September Monthly News! We start off this month in a similar way to last month and talk about the Race For Life. I wanted to thank everyone for donating to my Race for Life donation page. Amazingly…
Melanie’s August Monthly News
Welcome to Melanie’s August Monthly News and this month we are starting things off a little differently. A very dear friend of ours passed away on Sunday from Cancer. I am doing the race for life on September 12th and…
Melanie’s July Monthly News
Welcome to Melanie’s July monthly news, the latest instalment in what we have been getting up to this month. The first piece of lovely news is that we have received a wonderful photo from one of our clients who received…
Melanie’s June Monthly News
Welcome to Melanie’s June Monthly News and yet another month has flown by again. It seems to be going so fast this year. We have been incredibly busy in the garden again doing more renovations, out in the back garden…
Melanie’s May Monthly News
Welcome to Melanie’s May Monthly News which will mostly comprise of the completion of our front garden renovations…at last! The photo below, even though a fairly old photo, shows the old stone wall well. It was once a lime washed…
Melanie’s April Monthly News
Welcome to Melanie’s April Monthly News where we have been a little further afield this month. All thanks to the relaxing of restrictions, plus we have been pretty busy to boot too! Cute photos of Lily to start this months…
Melanie’s March Monthly News
Welcome to Melanie’s March monthly news where we have still been in lockdown! No exciting photos as such this month as we haven’t been very far. The good news is thought we have just come out of lockdown in the…
Melanie’s February Monthly News
Welcome to Melanie’s February Monthly News, in a month where we have had quite a lot of rain….! We had a deluge of about 3 days and nights of constant hard rain and it created a surge of water in…
Melanie’s January Monthly News
Welcome to Melanie’s January Monthly News and another month has whizzed by. Well I say whizzed, we are still in lockdown and so haven’t really been anywhere exciting….. well anywhere really! Our weather has been pretty bad, we have survived…
Melanie’s December Monthly News
Welcome to Melanie’s December Monthly News – the last blog of the year! I’m wring this on New Years Eve and I think if you ask most people today, they will surely say, let’s hope 2021 will be a better…
Melanie’s November Monthly News
Welcome to Melanie’s November Monthly News. It has been a busy month, in fact the last 4 weeks have literally flown and it seems only a few days ago I sat down to write our October post. The winter is…
Melanie’s October Monthly News
Welcome to Melanie’s October Monthly News! I gave the game away a little with the feature image didn’t I! Yes, we have had babies! It has been a very ‘eggciting’ time. Consequently out of the 6 eggs we had incubated,…
Melanie’s September Monthly News
Welcome to Melanie’s September monthly news with a little run down of whats been happening here this month. The first piece of news is quite sad, one of my hens died and so Mrs Chortle is the one and only…
Melanie’s August Monthly News
Welcome to Melanie’s August Monthly News about what we have been up to this month. Often here in Wales we have beautiful weather all the way up to August and then it seems to be somewhat of a washout. We…
Melanie’s July Monthly News
Welcome to Melanie’s July monthly news, another month has flown by again and here we are with lots more photos and news. Lily and myself have still been doing our early morning trundles down the lane and have come across…
Melanie’s June Monthly News
Welcome to Melanie’s June Monthly News! We hope that all of our readers are being able to stay well and healthy across the globe. Nicholas and myself are both fine here and still working hard. We are still pretty much…
Melanie’s May Monthly News
Welcome to Melanie’s May Monthly News! And if there was ever a tongue twister that might be a good one! We are still in lockdown here in Wales. We can only go as far as 5 miles for recreational trips…
Melanie’s April Monthly News
Welcome to Melanie’s April Monthly News. We usually add photos of our little jaunts and expeditions with Lily, but like most people all over the world, we haven’t been anywhere! The weather has been absolutely beautiful here though so instead,…
Melanie’s March Monthly News
Welcome to Melanie’s March monthly news. Well all I can say is that this months news is nothing like any other month I have blogged about! What unprecedented times we are living in. To be truthful, our every day lives…
Melanie’s February Monthly News
Welcome to Melanie’s February Monthly News. Well, February has been a stormy one! We have had winds, rain, more winds, more rain, hail, thunder and a lot more winds and rain. How crazy has it been this month weather wise…
Melanie’s January Monthly News
Welcome to Melanie’s January Monthly News – Happy New Year 2020! We hope that you all had a lovely festive season and New Year. We are now in our 23rd year for our pet portraits business! This month has flown…
Melanie’s December Monthly News
Welcome to Melanie’s December Monthly News! Merry Christmas to everyone! As you may have noticed we haven’t posted any artwork in the last couple of months. Mainly as most of it has been for surprise presents this Christmas. I will…
Melanie’s November Monthly News
Welcome to Melanie’s November Monthly News. As you can probably imagine it has been very busy here in the studio with portraits for Christmas. However we did manage to get out and about for a couple of days in November.…
Capturing the Perfect Horse Photo for A Pet Portrait
I thought it would be great to write a blog post today about Capturing the Perfect Horse Photo for a Pet Portrait. We always say to clients, we are unable to meet your horse in real life, so photos are…
Melanie’s October News
Welcome to Melanie’s October News! It has been a busy month with lots of things happening. At the start of the month I had an odd headache bug, then as soon as I felt better, poorly Lily came down with…
Golden Retriever Oil Painting
Welcome to the pet portrait story of the Golden Retriever oil painting of H. Nicholas traditionally hand painted the portrait on Italian Linen canvas. Our client commissioned the painting as a Christmas surprise for his wife. We love it when clients…
Oil Pet Portraits by Nicholas Beall
Welcome to the latest Oil Pet Portraits by Nicholas Beall of Chucho and Jack Henry. Our client Cate ordered two 14 x 12 oil paintings of her dogs in oils on canvas, both framed. Cate has some lovely photos of…
Pencil Pet Portrait of Bramble
Welcome to my latest piece of artwork, a pencil pet portrait of Bramble. Commissioned by Richard for his wife birthday as a surprise. Framed using our Madison Slate frame. One of my favourite frames for my drawings as the blue…
Melanie’s Monthly News in September
Welcome to Melanie’s monthly news in September! Where has this month flow to?! I can’t believe it is October already. We are both pretty much fully booked for Christmas portraits, we haven’t even started to think about Christmas ourselves yet.…
Spaniel Pet Portrait in Oils of Millie
Welcome to our latest Spaniel Pet Portrait in Oils of Millie. The portrait was a 16 x 12 oil painting traditionally hand painted by Nicholas on Italian Linen canvas. Our client Peter got in contact and sent us this lovely…
Cat Portraits in Oils – Cat Portrait of Roly
Welcome to our most recent cat portrait in oils of Roly. He is a very handsome cat, painted for returning clients in Scotland by Nicholas. Kirstie commissioned the portrait as a gift for her husband’s birthday. Gordon was over the…
Melanie’s August News
Welcome to Melanie’s August News! We hope that you enjoyed our last months news all about our roof renovations. If you haven’t already taken a peak, you can do here – June & July News. We are thrilled to say…
Ruffwear Logo Pet Portrait
Welcome to my most exciting project of the year, the Ruffwear logo pet portrait commission. Andrew Geere, the CEO of Ruffwear, called me to discuss commissioning a pencil drawing earlier this year in April. The focus of the portrait would…
Spaniel Pet Portrait of KitKat
Spaniel Pet Portraits are the order of the day today, as this oil pet portraits story is all about Kitkat the Spaniel and her pet Portrait. Steve our client asked us of he could commission an oil painting of his…
Golden Retriever Pet Portraits
Welcome to the latest Golden Retriever Pet Portraits commission of dogs Monty and Mungo. Nicholas was commissioned by clients in Guernsey to paint their two beautiful dogs, one of which Monty, had sadly passed away. The portrait would serve as…
Melanie’s June & July News
Welcome to Melanie’s June & July News! It has been extremely busy here in the last couple of months, hence why we didn’t have a blog newsletter last month. As you can see from the photos below we have been…
Large Scale Oil Pet Portraits
Welcome to our latest bespoke large scale oil pet portraits commission. This portrait was commissioned by Jamie and Lubka Hallam of their two gorgeous dogs Bilbo and Mr Kipling. Jamie and Lubka requested a large oil painting of them sitting…
Cat Pencil Pet Portrait
Welcome to my latest cat pencil pet portrait of two cats called Archie and Roly. This portrait is for returning clients Kirstie and Gordon. They previously commissioned a portrait of their beautiful cat Dudly who is sadly no longer with…
Triple Dog Portrait in Pencil
Katie Rampton commissioned a triple dog portrait in pencil of their three dogs Winston, Alfie and Ziggy. Katie commissioned it for her husband’s birthday as a complete surprise. She purchased a gift voucher so that Matthew could choose his own…
English Bulldog Pet Portrait
Welcome to Nicholas’ latest English Bulldog Pet Portrait in oils on canvas. Our client Mark contacted us earlier this year to see if Nicholas could create an oil painting of his English Bulldog. The only problem was that Rocco was…
Double Horse Oil Painting
Welcome to our Double Horse Oil Painting by Nicholas Beall. As you may already know my name is Melanie and I specialise in pencil drawings of pets. Nicholas specialises in the oil paintings. I am the one who writes the…
Labradoodle Pet Portrait in Oils
Welcome to our Labradoodle pet portrait in oils by Nicholas Beall. Claudia emailed us to see if we would be able to create a painting of her dog Luna. But for a birthday deadline. It was within two weeks!! We…
Melanie’s May News
Welcome to Melanie’s May News which, this month has all been about ponds, frogs, toads, water snails, newts, bees and flowers! Oh and a naughty cat! The photo below shows what the pond looks like as of today! Sitting pretty…
Oil Pet Portrait of Boo The Pomeranian
Welcome to Nicholas’ latest oil pet portrait of Oil Pet Portrait of Boo The Pomeranian! Our client Sienna Mason Davies called our studio to chat about having an oil painting of her boyfriend’s Pomeranian called Boo. Sienna didn’t have any…
Yorkshire Terrier Pencil Pet Portrait
Welcome to my latest Yorkshire Terrier Pencil Pet Portrait of Chloe! Returning client Bob commissioned the pencil pet portrait of Chloe his Yorkshire Terrier. We have also actually met Bob and Jennifer! They came over to the UK visiting family…
Melanie’s April News
Welcome to Melanie’s April News. What a difference 20 days makes! As you can see from the photo below of our front garden, at the start of April we had an unexpected snow flurry. Woke up to a light covering…
Pencil Pet Portrait of Rusty
Welcome to my latest Pencil Pet Portrait of Rusty which was a 20 x 16 inches drawing commissioned by a client in the USA. Verity emailed me asking if I would be able to draw Rusty for her husband’s birthday…
Dog and Cottage Oil Pet Portrait
Welcome to our latest Dog and Cottage Oil Pet Portrait with our clients dog Stella front and centre stage! Our client Richard had one particular favourite photo he wanted to use for the portrait and it was of Stella in…
Staffordshire Bull Terrier Pencil Drawing
Welcome to my Staffordshire Bull Terrier Pencil drawing of Ellie commissioned by returning client Jo and her family. I have been working with Jo’s family for a number of years. You might have recently seen the Cuddly Toy of Piggy…
Melanie’s March News
Welcome to Melanie’s March News! We actually haven’t been anywhere of note this month. It’s all been about getting portraits completed for deadlines. However whilst we have been busy bees in our studio…the sun has shone outside in the garden…
Norfolk Terrier Pet Portraits in Oil
Welcome to our latest Norfolk Terrier Pet Portraits in Oil of a beautiful dog called Freddie. Our clients wanted to have an oil painting at 14 x 11 inches of their beloved boy immortalised on canvas. Vanessa and her family…
Alsatian Pencil Drawing
Welcome to my latest Alsatian pencil drawing of Nash. The portrait was hand drawn by myself (Melanie) for clients in North Carolina, USA. Mike wanted to have a large sized portrait, which also worked well for his breed of dog.…
Maltese Pet Portrait Oil Painting
Welcome to our beautiful Maltese pet portrait oil painting of Bob. Isn’t he gorgeous! Nicholas traditionally hand painted Bob at 16 x 12 inches. The painting is an on linen canvas, painted for a lovely client here in Wales called…
Melanie’s February News
Welcome to Melanie’s February News! This month has flown by again. I cant quite believe we are at the end of February already. We have had a busy month, we have been to a few places although mainly detours when…
Vizsla Pencil Drawing
Welcome to my latest Vizsla pencil drawing of Kiwi. Catherine was a returning client and asked if I would draw a portrait for her as a gift. Very sadly Catherine’s good friend lost her young Vizsla, Kiwi, in a tragic…
Cat Pet Portraits In Oil
Welcome to Nicholas’ latest cat pet portraits in oil. Katie contacted us asking if we would be able to paint her cat Shelly in oils at 16 x 12 size. Katie had two photos of Shelly, one of which was…
Black Labrador Pencil Portrait
Welcome to my latest Black Labrador Pencil Portrait. One of my favourite breeds to draw is the black Labrador, because of their beautiful shiny coat and happy faces – just like Merry in this portrait. My client Nicholas Williams commissioned…
Terrier Oil Portraits
Welcome to our Terrier Oil Portraits painting of Blu, who was a gorgeous little dog commissioned by Jayne and her family. In actual fact Jayne’s family purchased one of our Gift Vouchers for Jaynes birthday. Jayne and her family sadly…
Melanie’s January News
Welcome to Melanie’s January News! Its been a busy month with work, however we did manage to go to a few places this month. Starting with a favourite place of ours called Tenby. I have to say its best visited…
Dog Oil Portrait
Welcome to our latest dog oil portrait of Spyder. Nicholas traditionally hand painted Spyder for clients Karen and her family in Ohio, USA. Karen’s husband took some beautiful photos of their dog Spyder specifically for their dog oil portrait which…
Pencil Pet Portrait Montage
Welcome to my first drawing of the year, a pencil pet portrait montage of Mikey. A lovely client in the USA commissioned the portrait of Mikey. Sadly Mikey passed away last year and so he felt that this Pencil Pet…
Black Labrador Oil Portrait
Welcome to our Black Labrador Oil Portrait which is the first oil painting of January! It was lovely to get back into the studio and start on the next batch of paintings and drawings. Our client Drinda sadly lost her…
Oil Pet Portrait Commission
Welcome to our latest oil pet portrait commission of Leya and Jack. Matilde Mourinho contacted us in 2018 to see if we would be able to create an oil portrait for her mum for Christmas. Time was very short as…
Bull Dog and Cow Pet Portraits
Welcome to my latest two bull dog and cow pet portraits. They are two separate portraits for the same client which I completed in December of last year. I have alternated photos of each drawing below, so that you can…
Weimaraner Oil Portrait
Welcome to our Weimaraner oil portrait of Keo, traditionally hand painted by Nicholas. The oil painting of Keo was completed just prior to Christmas in 2018 for client Lyndsey, here in the UK. Lyndsey emailed us some beautiful photos of…
Melanie’s December News
Welcome to Melanie’s December News! Well, what a month. I literally can’t believe how much work we have completed in the month of December. I’m sure that you can see by the number of our recent blog posts how many…
Horse Pencil Drawing
Welcome to my latest horse pencil drawing. My pencil drawing of Duker was commissioned by Lizzie as a surprise for her mum Jane. Lizzie ordered a gift voucher as Jane’s birthday was fairly soon after Lizzie’s initial contact. She also felt…
Bichon Frise Oil Painting
Welcome to our latest Bichon Frise Oil Painting! This portrait was painted in October 2018 by Nicholas for a client in the USA. Jennifer commissioned it to give as a gift to her family for Christmas. The Bichon Frise in question is…
Horse Oil Portrait
Welcome to our latest horse oil portrait of Elly. Nicholas completed the oil portrait for a 50th Birthday surprise. Hannah arranged the oil painting for her boss and their family to give as a gift to Elly’s owner. They had…
Cuddly Toy Drawing of Piggy
Welcome to my latest artwork of a cuddly toy drawing of Piggy. I absolutely loved drawing Piggy for returning client Jo from the UK, it was so much fun. Jo commissioned the drawing of Piggy as a gift for her…
Cat Oil Portrait
Welcome to our latest Cat Oil Portrait of Mitzy. Helen commissioned a cat oil portrait of their family’s beloved cat called Mitzy. It was to be a surprise present for her husband. Sadly Mitzy has passed away and Helen and her…
Dog Portrait of Dessie and Jasper
Welcome to our latest dog portrait of Dessie and Jasper. The oil painting was commissioned by a lovely client here in the UK. It was to be a surprise gift for his wife on her birthday. The size was 28 x…
King Charles Spaniel Pet Portraits
Welcome to Nicholas’ latest King Charles Spaniel pet portraits oil painting of Boone. Readers may have noticed that we haven’t posted any of Nicholas’ oil paintings recently. I will be adding them to our blog over the next few days…
Beagle Pet Portrait of Blue
Welcome to my latest portrait and yes it’s another beagle pet portrait! I love that my clients rescue dogs, it warms my heart to know that they are now in a loving home and safe environment. That is just what happened for Blue in the last couple…
Melanie & Nicholas Pet Portraits
Pencil drawings and Oil Paintings of Dogs, Cats and Horses
