A Marriage Proposal

Commissioned oil painting on canvas 80x100cm

The brief for this painting came right out of the blue, from the young lady featured, in this most romantic of portraits.  She wanted the painting to present to her fiance on the day of their wedding.  Such a charming idea, which instantly captured my imagination.

But there was a problem;  the only photo of the marriage proposal was a rather poor photo taken at night in very dim artificial lighting, out of focus, of a very low resolution, with the bride-to-be's face almost completely obscured by her beautiful hair.  Enjoying a challenge, as I do, I decided to accept the commission.  What follows, shows the several attempts I made to do justice to this special moment in the lives of this young couple, and in particular the struggle I had to capture that lovely face on canvas.

work in progress 1

I began as usual by drawing the composition onto the canvas.  On this occasion with graphite, as I wanted to be quite precise about the positioning of the hands and the tender way they were clasped.

A likeness to the subjects wasn't my aim at this stage.  It was more important to show the posture of the figures, and how they related to each other.

work in progress 2

Work-in-progress 2 shows how I loosely blocked in the background to reflect the dark randomness of what in the photo appeared to be a rough stone wall.  It was very apparent that this was not going to work well, and would need to be re-thought later.


Leaping onward to work-in-progress 9 by this time I had softened the background, with the beginnings of light glowing centrally.  Almost from the start I had the feeling I wanted to show the young people as if caught in a bubble of emotion, where their connection to each other was almost electric.  Totally separate from all the other people perhaps there at the time, or viewing the painting in the future.




The loving expression on the young man's face clearly showed in the photo, so was able to capture this straight away.  I then began a similar process with the other beautiful face, which was less straight forward.

Having little to go on from the proposal photo, because her face was hidden by hair, the client provided many other photos of herself.  None of them seemed to have the expression I felt she would have worn at that very special moment.  I made many attempts to combine how she appeared in the various photos together with my imagination.  The client collaborated wonderfully, with images and emails flying backwards and forwards, until we eventually saw her perfect expression emerge on the canvas.

Finally she sent images of furniture and decor in the room where the painting would be displayed, so I was able to add soft pastel tints to complement the room.

This project was a great lesson to me.  Emotions and instincts are far more important than any technical issues.  Problems are there to be overcome.  With persistence, plus enthusiasm and feedback from clients, magic things can happen.

Commissioned oil painting on canvas 80x100cm

How to commission a painting.  If you have an idea for a painting you'd like to discuss with me, you're welcome to get in touch.  You can reach me by email beeskelton@gmail.com or see more work in my Etsy Shop or website www.beeskelton.com

Pomerian pet portrait painting

Dazzling custom dog portrait by Bee Skelton

A few weeks ago, I was initially astonished to receive a most unexpected commission for a custom pet portrait, in a style for which I'm not generally known.  I really did marvel at the the confidence the client placed in me, because she knew my usual work, and was still prepared to trust me to do something so completely different.

Little dog Jimmy is a most treasured pet, who holds a special place in the heart of the client and her man.  A spectacularly bright, semi-abstract style was requested.  But it also needed to be a portrait in the usual sense, in that there was to be a likeness to the subject.

I decided Jimmy's sweet face needed to be rendered as naturally as possible as a starting point.  As usual in my portraits, I wanted to focus on the eyes.

Once I felt the little dog's personality was beginning to show, I began to let rip with colour.  What FUN that turned out to be!

Fluffy Pomeranian dogs have long hair, so there was ample scope to play with texture, brush strokes and oodles of thick paint.  Finally my client requested I hide Jimmy's name in the painting for viewers to search for.

I loved being challenged to do something outside my comfort zone.  I look forward to more of the same .... but different LOL!

How to commission a painting.  If you have an idea for a painting you'd like to discuss with me, you're welcome to contact me. 
 You can reach me by email beeskelton@gmail.com or see more work in my Etsy Shop or website www.beeskelton.com

Game of Thrones painting

Double portrait in Game of Thrones theme landscape

Today I thought it was about time I caught up a little on the blog to show just a few of the custom paintings I've worked on over recent weeks.  The first one above was a most unexpected commission.  And what fun it it turned out to be!

The client and his girlfriend are huge fans of the Game of Thrones tv series.  So much so, they've been to Ireland for a tour of the film locations.  Resplendent in fur-trimmed cloaks they had a photo to prove it. I was honoured to receive a request to use it as inspiration for a painting as a special surprise for the client's lady.

Here I have to 'fess up, I have never actually seen Game of Thrones, so needed to do a little homework.  However, the photo was very helpful, as it featured a beautiful background, which fans will recognise I believe.  In creating the painting I set out to emphasise the fantasy nature of the theme.

Work in progress 1

The painting was to be in acrylics on a 30x48.5 stretched canvas, approximately 12x20ins.  A wide format, intentionally chosen to show as much as possible of the fabulous landscape.

I began in WIP1 by loosely sketching the composition onto the gessoed canvas with thin grey paint, using the photo as inspiration.

Work in progress 2

WIP2 involved adding some colour in medium tones.

Work in progress 3

In WIP3 I set some darker tones.

From then on I gradually added layers to describe the atmosphere of the landscape background and eventually details of the portrait subjects in the foreground.

How to commission a painting.  If you have an idea for a painting you would like to discuss with me, you're welcome to get in touch.   You can reach me by email beeskelton@gmail.com or see more work in my Etsy Shop or website www.beeskelton.com

Support for #SeaShepherd defending whales in the Faroe Islands

I don't want to believe my eyes!  This morning I've been watching pictures on Twitter of the horrific slaughter of beautiful, innocent creatures.  Fishermen chased 250 whales to shore in the Faroe Islands and the locals stabbed them to death with glee while children watched!  The sea is turned red!  A blood bath!  How can so-called civilised people do this in the 21st Century!

I'm not rich, all I can do is paint.  But I have to do something.  I want to donate the whole of my fee for my next commissioned painting to Sea Shepherd who are doing their best under extreme circumstances to try to save the whales against such cruelty and ignorance.  I will also throw in FREE SHIPPING!

If you would like to help the charity by commissioning a painting take a look at the special listing I've added to my Etsy shop  I shall be making my donation to the Sea Shepherd  donation page. If you don't want a painting at this time and would like to give direct to Sea Shepherd, no matter how little, you know what to do.  On the other hand if you've been thinking about buying one of my custom portraits and want to help protect the whales, this is the ideal opportunity  Click here to find out how you can help.

Remember:  As always I offer a FREE assessment of your photo before you pay.  So please email me your favourite photo to inspire your painting and I'll get back to you pronto!

Black poodle custom portrait painting

Completed black poodle custom portrait.

I received a commission to paint a poodle with a cute smiley expression as a gift for the clients father.  It was a interesting project as the little dog is completely black.  I've painted many black dogs before but on this occasion decided to accentuate lights and medium tones using distinctive blue notes .

black dog work-in-progress 1

I worked on a stretched canvas using acrylic paint rather than oils because the painting was required quickly.  Oil paint would have taken too long to dry before it would have been safe to ship to the USA from my studio in England. I started with underpainting in soft warm colour intended to be complementary to the blues to be worked later.  A loose sketch of the poodle followed in thin dark grey paint.

Gradually tones, texture and colour were developed and finally a simple background that was carried onto the sides so the painting can be displayed without frame.

If you would love a portrait of your own dog, send me your favourite photo for FREE consultation and advice to beeskelton@gmail.com

black dog work-in-progress 2
more tone added

black dog work-in-progress 3
with light/medium blue notes

black dog work-in-progress 4

black dog completed side view

A dog really is for life

My sweet Sally

I just want to tell you about Sally, the sweetest, most loyal, lovable little dog, who we had to say a final good-bye to this month.

We first saw her 13 years ago as a tiny, skinny, dirty-grey scrap of a creature on the motorway just outside Limassol, Cyprus.  She was hit by a car just ahead of us, who failed to stop.  My husband and I ran waving our arms and managed to slow down the traffic enough to pick her up before she was hit again.  She appeared to be dead, but I just couldn't believe that life could be there one second and so completely gone the next.  I hadn't a clue what I was doing really, but tried to do what I thought was correct resuscitation procedure and H drove us to the nearest vet. On the way I saw her eyelids flicker and felt her sigh. But even so the vet said she was dead and it took some persuasion for him to check properly.  And then he sensed a very tiny heartbeat.

From that moment her recovery and wonderful new life began. Miraculously the only injury she had was a hole through her skull above her eyes.  She was mostly unconscious for around 3 days and then Choo Choo one of our other rescued Cyprus poodles dropped a ball in her bed inviting her to join the pack and play.  We think her head injury caused some kind of short-term memory loss and she never did learn to play.  Rather like a baby duckling with mother-duck because I was the first living creature she saw after her near death, I became her mother and centre of her universe;  even when asleep she would continually check to see where I was and would search me out if I'd left the room.  We had a special bond that I can't really put into words; the love we felt for each other was unique.  I love all my dogs, but there will never be another Sally.  RIP baby.