Pet Portraits More

Hi, my name is Sophie Steinmore. I live on the South Coast with my husband and sometimes with my grown up children who rebound home quite often! We also share our home with our rescue cat Finn. He’s rather taken over after a lifetime of being dog owners.

I studied at Wimbledon school of Art and then at Brighton, where my love of the seaside really began.

I have always loved animals, big and small and I love trying to capture their unique personalities in my paintings.

I work mainly in acrylics on canvas or board, but I have also painted in pen and wash and pastels.

The most important thing for me is to have really great source photographs to work from. One really good shot and preferably a few more for accurate colours. My tip would be to get down low when photographing a dog or cat.

This avoids the foreshortening that results in a huge head, tiny body look ( unless that is the look you want and can look quite fun!) The eyes are really important, so they should be nice and clear. Outdoor shots seem to work best in my opinion.