Hello!
Welcome to my brand new blog! I have been thinking about doing this for a while now as I thought it would be a great way for my current clients and followers to get to know me a little better as well as a brilliant thing for me to look back and reflect on.
This is just going to be a quick introduction for now, a bit about me and how a came to be doing what I do. For those who don't know me already - Hi! My name is Finnley and I'm an artist and painter specializing in Pet Portraiture (particularly dogs!) Despite my boys name I am in fact - a girl! It's not a family name, my parents just liked it so much they decided it was going to be my name whatever my gender (and I've been paying the price ever since!) I would describe my Pawtraits as a modern alternative to traditional pet portraiture. Each piece is painted by hand in my home studio and takes between 2 and 8 weeks to complete.
I currently live in St Leonards on Sea in East Sussex on the South coast of England with my boyfriend Ollie (who is also an artist, check out his work here : opdrawing he is very talented) and our scruffy black Shihtzu x Jack Russell Tovah. We have only been living here a short time after taking the plunge and buying our first home but we are both really enjoying exploring our new town.
I am originally from a little village in West Sussex called Fittleworth but when I was 19 I moved to London to study Drawing at Camberwell University of the Arts. After graduating in 2012, I spent a few years doing jobs I hated to pay the extortionate London rent, whilst juggling interning, job hunting and trying to make art. It's safe to say this was an incredibly difficult, confusing and frustrating period. For the first time in my life I had no direction and I felt I had no control over where my life was heading. After much deliberation, my boyfriend and I moved back to Sussex to try and figure out what we wanted to do next and that is when I started painting pets.
I had painted a few pets for birthdays in the past which had always gone down well so on a bit of a whim I set up an Instagram dedicated to it (@finnleyelliottpawtraits) to see if anyone other than my friends would be interested in commissioning me and to my surprise I had a really positive response! I started selling them pretty cheap at first whilst I built up my portfolio and with each piece my knowledge and skill grew. Two years on and hundreds of Pawtraits later, I am lucky enough to have customers all over the world - America, Canada, Australia and even Japan! The best part of my job is hearing back from lovely customers who are thrilled by the result and often moved to tears by my work. I love creating something that makes people so happy.
I am going to aim to blog once a week about a variety of things, be it new art that I've been working on, tips and tricks for young artists and potential customers, things to do in Hastings, St Leonards and the surrounding area or just stuff that I think might be of interest. I can't promise it will be the best written thing in the world and there may be a spelling mistake or two (or three) but hopefully you'll bear with me!
If you would like to get in contact to discuss an artwork, get in touch via my contact page or come and find me on social media. :-)