The Dog Portrait Artist

Honing her career by working with horses, this talented artist found her niche drawing animal portraits, specialising in dogs.

- Helene Ruma

Where do I begin? Do I start at primary school where, like so many children before and after me, I drew my favourite cartoon characters?

Do I start at aged 12, drawing my guinea pig (I wasn’t allowed to have a horse) who courageously sat through hours of being used as a life model?

Do I start in high school where I was taught to draw with the “right side of my brain” and was really impressed when my drawings actually looked like what it was supposed to?

Or do I start aged 38 when I decided to live in the moment like the animals that inspire me and become a full-time artist?

Let’s start in university… After finishing the HSC doing 3-unit Art, I was “steered” by my parents to stay away from working with the horses I was obsessed with and go into an artistic career path that didn’t involve poverty. So off I went to university to study Graphic Design majoring in Illustration. What a buzz! This is when I really discovered coloured pencils and was taught illustration by an Australian Geographic artist who would create Australian wildlife calendars each year.