If there ever comes a day when we can’t be together, keep me in your heart. I’ll stay there forever.” – A. A. Milne 

When I first started pinning on pinterest, I created a board called ‘animal happiness‘. It’s filled with super adorable images of all creatures great and small, with the sole purpose of making me happy (and hopefully anyone else who discovers it too). This was my inspiration behind this weeks creative project.

My pastel portrait of the handsome and happy Harley, is for my big Sister and her family. They lost Harley to illness a couple of years ago and it was a very sad time. He was a loving and loyal companion to them all. And I’m grateful I also spent many happy times with him too over the years.

I used soft pastels for this piece (a few different brands) as well as pastel pencils. I worked from a photo and got some great tips from a book by Maggie Price called ‘Painting With Pastels (easy techniques to master the medium)’. It’s been some time since I have used this medium. I found it challenging but also a fun and enjoyable way to paint. I loved that I could save time with no actual mixing of liquid paint, just the blending of these gorgeous pastel pigments on the paper. I used a Mi-Teintes Tex paper by Canson. They describe it as ‘fine sanded card for pastel’ and it made a beautiful base for me to work on. I’m looking forward to doing more projects in the future with this medium.

Harley boy, you will always be in our hearts. Until next week… happy painting.

Do you have a pet that holds a special place in your heart?