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 here in the uk and of course parts of Europe too. There has been a lot of flooding here in Wales, particularly south Wales. We are fine here, we are 600ft above sea level and not near a river, so thankfully it hasn’t affected us. When the winds are above 60mph we avoid working in the studio as we are surrounded by trees. So we have had a few days at the cottage, but luckily it has coincided with weekends.
Our February Commissions
We have created some lovely portraits this month and they will certainly be included in the galleries on our websites soon. One of our most noteworthy paintings this month has to be the portrait of Pats Jester below. We had a special frame made by our handcrafted framer called Kensington. You can see more photos of the frame and a video one our website pet portraits framing section. It is simply stunning and as a result all of the tones and colours work very well with the portrait too. It was completed with an engraved plaque fitted by our framers.
I have completed two pencil drawings this month. One of a gorgeous cat called Wally and two French Bull Dogs which were framed using our Allerton Pewter frame. The Allerton Pewter comes in two sizes, one mid and one wide and due to the size of the portrait witch was 20 x 16 inches, we opted to go for the wide version. It worked really well and looked very smart.
Finally Nicholas has just completed a portrait of a wire-haired Dachshund called Belle. The overall colour scheme works beautifully in this portrait. In the reference photo there was some amount of grass behind the brick paving, however by removing it the whole scene has a very serene quality to it. We hope you like it.
Birthday Lunch with friends..
We have been out and about this month with our friends as it was his 50th birthday. We had a lovely lunch out in Newport Pembs and went for a walk after to blow away the cobwebs. Also to walk off the big lunch we had all eaten! It was a chilly day but the views were amazing and we could even see all the way over to Ireland. I have aded some photos below of our day, we hope that you enjoy viewing them. We also hope you have enjoyed reading our Melanie’s February Monthly News. If you missed our January news, head over to our previous blog post to take a look.
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I just love the english countryside – never mind the bad weather.
Hi Peter,
I’m glad you like the countryside here Peter, I have to say though… Switzerland isn’t half bad either!!!! 🙂
It’s been a lovely day today, let’s hope spring has sprung!
Melanie x
Melanie, you have such beautiful skin! I’ve always heard that about English women, and my mother said it is because the climate, cool and moist, is perfect for skin. I guess the same is true in Wales, yes? Glad you are surviving the storms, been reading about all the flooding.
Hi Kathleen,
Thank you so much! Thats so kind of you to say! Well its definitely cool and moist here thats for sure! But I also think the phone camera has softened it a bit! 🙂 I hope that your weather is ok, the flooding has not been good, I am hoping that the weather will start to improve now. Its been a lovely day here today thankfully! Melanie xx
I completely agree with Kathleen. Wow, you do have beautiful skin! It’s not so easy here in Arizona where it’s very dry. I have been thinking of you all there in the UK with all of that weather. Ugh! I am glad to hear you made it through. I loved visiting England back in 1986. Would love to come back one day. Meanwhile, I do hope you all stay well and dry.
Hi Linda!
So lovely to hear from you! I hope that you are well and still painting and keeping busy with your art!
Thank you for your compliments on my skin. That is so kind of you! I cant imagine what a dry heat is like for skin (although id quite like to find out!!) It is definitely not dry here or warm today, misty rain and overcast. No sun to be seen at all. Perhaps good for the skin, but we could all certainly do with some sunshine here in the UK. Have a lovely rest of your day and week! Melanie xxxx