The Pet Portrait Blog
Welcome to my blog.
Hello, I'm Sema Martin, and I welcome you to this series of blog posts tailored to assist fellow artists in their quest to achieve greatness. With a specialization in color pencils as a medium, my expertise stems from creating numerous pet portraits that have found homes across the globe. Join me as we delve into the intricacies of art, unraveling techniques, and insights to elevate your craft. Let's embark on this artistic journey together!
Categories
How to start an art business
To all my fellow artists out there wishing and hoping to be full time and actually make a living from selling your artwork. Based on everything I have learnt in the last three years of building my own successful pet portrait business, I have created this 200-page book that provides everything you need to know about starting your own art business.
2019 World of Colour Pencil Exhibition at the Derwent Pencil Museum in Keswick, UK
My Drawing ‘Lazy Days’ was selected for the 2019 World of Colour Pencil Exhibition run by the UK Colour Pencil Society at the Derwent Pencil Museum in Keswick, UK.
Must join Facebook Groups for Colour Pencils Artists
As an artist working from home, I sometimes feel isolated and it can be hard to find people in the local area who has the same interests as me. Since joining these Facebook groups, I have found such a large and wonderful community that has taken me in with open arms and all have the same wonderful thing in common, a love for coloured pencil art.
5 Artist Studio Must Haves
When it comes to the right studio space for any artist, some of us can be limited or find it hard to know what we need before we can sit down and draw. I have taken around 3 years to learn and build up the must have items I use every day for my commission work. In this blog I have laid out the 5 Artist Studio Must Haves I cannot live without including scanners and drawing board. There is a direct amazon link for a UK or US customer for each item I talk about. I hope this is useful to you. Let me know in the comments below.
How to: Use Arteza Expert Watercolor Pencils & Premium Watercolor Pad
I have had the great opportunity to test out Arteza’s Expert Watercolor Pencils, and Arteza’s Premium Watercolor Pad.
How To: Use Arteza Art Colour Pencils
This blog is about my test of an art brand called Arteza You may have heard of them. They had kindly enough sent me two of their products to try out and evaluate. Their 100 sheet premium sketch A4 sketch book and their tin of 48 expert colored pencils. There will be links to buy them below if you would also like to test them out.
5 Must have materials for colour pencil pet portrait artists
I am a self-taught colour pencil artist and I have been using colour pencils every day for the last four years to create my portrait commissions and develop my skills. I have learnt a lot about the types of colour pencils out there and which ones work best with my style of drawing. When I first started drawing I used a small tin of Derwent drawing pencils. These were ideal to get me going and are an inexpensive way to start developing your skills as a colour pencil artist. But as I started experimenting with other brands I realised the significance of more expensive pencils and they were so much better in terms of saturation and depth.
5 Essential Tools for Pencil Portraits
Apart from paper and colour pencils there are a few essential tools I use to create my pet portraits over the last few years. Here is a list of the ones I can’t do without with a link to where you can buy them. I hope this helps with anyone starting out in colour pencil drawing. Let me know if there are any you use and think should be on list too!
Engineering or Art?
As a child I had always loved drawing and colouring for hours on end. I went through hundreds of colouring books and tried every medium of art imaginable. I was forever creating and imagining beautiful animals and plants to draw until I was told I had to pick a ‘real career’. I don’t understand why we are told, so young, that art and music are just hobbies, not career paths. Becoming a doctor or an Engineer is the ideal path and so that is what I chose.
How to Draw a realistic cat in colour pencil
When I started drawing for commissioned work I had no idea how much my customers loved to see the drawing progress of my work as well as receiving the final portrait. I developed a technique for taking pictures of my drawing process which has greatly influenced the way in I draw and the order I draw in.
Becoming a Pet Portrait Artist in the UK
Drawing has been my passion since early childhood but I hadn't considered the possibility of art being a wonderful and successful career path for me. Instead of studying art as a degree I decided to become an engineer.