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Pet portrait of Labradoodle by Naomi Jenkin Art.

Art Materials

“Everyone has been amazed by the artwork. I couldn't have been more pleased with the result.”

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Reviews

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    I commissioned Naomi to draw our dog Ziggy for my husband's birthday. She was very friendly and helpful when deciding what the final pose should be. I would highly recommend her fantastic drawing skills, the images do not do the craftsmanship justice when you see it in real life. The attention to detail and the ability to capture the personality of Ziggy in a drawing blew my husband and I away. Everyone has been amazed by the artwork and I couldn't have been more pleased with the result. Thank you Naomi.

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    Sarah Booth
    Owner of Ziggy the Labrador

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    Thrilled to pieces with with this portrait we got commissioned for my mums birthday of her dog Bobby. The detail is incredible and captures him beautifully (and the detail on that ball!) Naomi was great with keeping me up to date the whole time and fulfilling my extra requests. Thank you so much she is over the moon x

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    Leigh-Anne Fagg
    Dog portrait client

Hand drawn pet portraits

Chalk pastel sticks.

A small selection of the chalk pastel sticks I use.

Your pet portrait will be hand drawn in pastels using only the highest quality art materials.

Pastels are fantastic for drawing animals. Their softness allows me to create wonderfully soft and fluffy fur textures. The huge range of available colours enables me to accurately recreate the tones of your pet’s fur and eyes. They come in a wide range of forms, from chunky sticks to pencils, giving great options for both large areas of diffuse colour, and very precise detailing.  

Pastels also allow me to build up many layers within the drawing, creating fantastic depth and realism, to really bring your artwork to life.

Pet portrait artist Naomi Jenkin drawing a golden Retriever portrait.

Naomi drawing portrait of Roger the golden Retriever.

Chalk Pastels

I use a wide variety of chalk pastels for my work. Chalk pastels come in varying degrees of hardness. The hardness is a measure of how much pigment to binder (glue) the pastel contains. Harder pastels allow for sharper details, but have less colour vibrancy, while softer pastels have a much stronger colour, but are more difficult to use for fine details. Therefore, I use a mixture of pastels with varying degrees of hardness for different parts of the drawing.

​​Chalk Pastels come in a variety of forms including sticks, pencils and Pan Pastels. I use sticks and pencils the most, and occasionally use Pan Pastels for diffuse backgrounds.

High resistance to fading

The pastels I use have excellent lightfast ratings. Lightfastness is a measure of how resistant a pigment or dye is to fading under UV light. Cheap amateur art supplies are very prone to fading, hence why I never use them. I only ever use high quality professional pastels which have excellent lightfast ratings. This ensures that your portrait is highly resistant to ageing.

Pastel Brands

I use a wide variety of professional pastel brands. They all have their different strengths, and over the years I’ve come to know which ones work best for different areas of your portrait. Some of the most common brands I use are listed below.

Pastel Pencils

  • Stabilo Carbothello
  • Faber Castell Pitt Pastels
  • Derwent
  • Caran D’Ache
  • Conté à Paris

Pastel Sticks

  • Unison
  • Rembrandt
  • Faber Castell Polychromos
  • Conté à Paris
  • Daler Rowner Artists’ Soft Pastels

Pastel paper

I use professional sanded pastel paper for all my pet portraits. This type of surface is fantastic for holding lots of pastel pigment, allowing me to build up many layers of colour within your portrait. This results in a highly realistic drawing that has depth, dimension and vivid colours.

​The paper I use is acid free. Cheaper papers are made with wood pulp that contains natural acids, and over time this can cause a yellowing effect. By using a professional acid-free paper, you can be sure that your drawing will not yellow over time.

​The brand of pastel paper that I use the most is called Pastelmat. I’ve used it for many years and it produces fantastic results. I also occasionally use UArt, for my larger portraits. This is also a brilliant surface and produces incredibly vibrant and detailed, yet soft, textures.

Portrait of Nova the golden Retriever, drawn on UArt pastel paper. 

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"The finished portrait was absolutely outstanding, Naomi captured everything that we love about our Harry - it even caused happy tears on Christmas morning..."

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