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 number of things have been keeping me under the weather, rolling from one thing to another, so the blog kind of slipped somewhat last year. Mainly as it was more important to get the portraits completed and sent to clients for them to give at Christmas. Which we both did!

I am gradually feeling better. January has been a mix of relaxing, a little bit of work and being by the fire in the cottage. We have managed to get out and about this month. Even though the weather has been fairly cold, it has been dry and sunny. The photo below was taken down in Pembrokeshire …. more photos from that day to follow. Let’s talk about portraits first!!

Pet Portraits Happy Clients!

Over the last few months we have received some amazing photos from our clients. It makes our job so special to receive these and I have collated a few below. Don’t you just adore the photo of Parker with his portrait! It has to be my favourite. I will add the photo to my website soon as they have only just arrived in my inbox. Love him!! Scroll down to see more photos of clients with their portraits in the following sections too!

Website Updates!

I have been taking some time to update our websites with our new artwork, along with some photos on our about us pages. So far I have completed our main pet portrait site, our horse portraits site and my pencil portrait site. We have 5 sites in total, so its a lot of work, but it’s something that I enjoy and can do in the background. I create them using Dreamweaver the ‘old school’ way with some code and css so it definitely keeps the grey matter firing! I hope Mr Google approves of the updates!

Melanie’s January Monthly News – Laugharne

One of our favourite places locally to us is the village of Laugharne. It is where the author Dylan Thomas had his little writing shed. It has some lovely views and coastal walks as you can see from the photos below. The carpark is free too! Amazing. We often sit and have a picnic lunch in the car and you can take walks in either direction from the car park. A recommended place to visit if you are heading to west Wales at any time of year.

The Pet Portrait of Max

A very special commission that we created for a lovely family last year was of Max the Bichon Fries. Sadly Max passed away and his whole family really missed him, he was a true member of their family. So Nicholas set about creating a painting of him laying on his special purple velvet blanket, which we used for the background too. The portrait was framed with an engraved plaque and it all matches beautifully. As you can see from the photo below we have very happy clients! What could be better!

Cherry Picker Ride….

Would you go 50ft up in a cherry picker? I jumped at the chance when one was in our garden recently while we were having some Ash trees taken. We have Ash die back in our area unfortunately, so we need to take down the worst affected. Dont worry, we still have lots of trees in our garden!

I have to confess I didn’t go all the way to 50ft! It was probably around 45ft when I said to Derek our lovely tree surgeon… “yeah I think that’s enough now”… ! We went straight up…then went diagonally out across the garden to cut a branch that he needed to trim! Loved it! The photo below shows me taking photos of the views and of Nicholas and Lily down below. It was a little scary! I think if I was to go up again I wouldn’t hold on quite so tightly. For my first go though, I think I was pretty brave….!

Harlan Crow Paintings

We received a fantastic photo of all of the paintings Nicholas has created for client Harlan Crow and his family. Harlan commissioned two oil paintings of Pippa and Gus last year and the photos of them all framed are beautiful! Harlan commissioned a carpenter craftsman to make each frame especially for the portraits. The names of the dogs are engraved on the frames along with items associated with each dog. They are a joy to behold.

Wiseman’s Bridge to Saundersfoot

The photo of me at the top of the page was taken in Pembrokeshire at a fantastic spot called Wiseman’s Bridge. We walked from there to Saundersfoot and back again while we were waiting for Lily to be groomed. Having felt a little guilty we were walking at such an amazing place without her, we have promised we will go back soon! The rock formations on the beach are incredible. Along with two tunnel walkways through the rocks, all lit up with solar lighting, it was amazing. Scroll down to see one of the tunnels. It was a fantastic place and we will definitely be returning soon.

Pencil Pet Portrait of Beano

One of my favourite commissions last year was of Beano. My client Ellen sent me a WhatsApp message to see if I would be able to draw Beano for Christmas. Luckily I had one space left in my schedule! Ellen took a photo of her husband with the portrait which I am so thrilled with. I will be adding it to my website soon!

Adam, my husband was so happy with the picture. He has it on the wall of his study so it’s directly in his line of sight while he’s working. Thank you for doing such an amazing job!

Ellen

Melanie’s January Monthly News – Back to Running….

And Finally! I had to take a couple of months off from my favourite past time of running due to being unwell. However, I’m gradually getting back into the swing of things. I started back last week with walk / jogs and it was so good to be back with the gang. I really missed them all.

The photo below is of Harvey my good running pal while out running. I’m really looking forward to doing more jaunts like this soon. We set out to do a 10k from my cottage in a loop around the countryside. It’s one I’d definitely like to have another go at. We ran along side and over the river Teifi (pronounced Tyvi). It’s beautiful and we do take it for granted. We run along it in a variety of places around here and it is simply beautiful. Hopefully there will be more early more running photos in the coming weeks!

Its been quite a long blog post this month, however I think we are all caught up. We will have lots more photos and news in our next blog post and if you missed seeing our cottage decorated for Christmas, head on over to last months post. Christmas at our Cottage. See you next time!

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