February 20th is National Love Your Pet Day, a day for us to share our love with our furry friends of all forms – whether it be cats, dogs, birds. In honour of this day, I wanted to share a short blog about my love for dogs and live dog drawing events I run on the weekends.
I’ve been surrounded by dogs all my life. Growing up as an only child they’ve always been the sibling, playmate and partner in crime. This passion for animals is also shared with my family. Starting with pet sitting for neighbours and family friends, it has continued with creating an animal sanctuary for hedgehogs, birds and field mice which we found injured in our garden or the neighbours’ garden.
This passion for animals, and especially dogs, has carried through to now. During the day I’m a senior digital designer within the Comms Studio at Nelson Bostock Unlimited creating wireframes, UX thinking, and UI execution for various clients. However outside of work I have a huge passion for illustration, specifically pet portraiture. I started drawing dogs from a very young age and now run live dog drawing stints at pubs around London on some weekends. These live drawing events help me with sketching under time pressure. I sketch each dog portrait within 30-45 mins. This aids my sketching skills for our clients when it comes to developing quick ideas for logo designs, key visual mock-ups for new business pitches and wireframe concepts for digital projects. It’s also a brilliant way to explore my creativity onscreen and offscreen.
See some examples of my live dog drawing portraits below:
