Pet Portraits with Personality!
Tickets £70
Lunch available for purchase from the food and gift fair in the Cloister Garden open 10am-5pm
All levels of painter are welcome to work with Lucy Burton on a stage by stage process to create a Pet Portrait in Oils or Acrylics.
You’ll use an ‘islands to oceans’ method of working, aiming to make the eyes come alive and give the animal and your painting lots of personality!
Lucy will inspire you with some new ideas and techniques to take away with you and apply to your own work.
You will be working from your own image, either from an I-pad OR you can use a photograph at least 5” x 5”.
The animal’s eyes must be clear and in focus.
Crop your image so that it is square.
The head of the animal should take up most of the frame.
For good (free to use) reference images see www.pixabay.com
The better the reference image – the better the painting!
Lucy Burton is an oil painter and tutor based in Leamington Spa, who takes commissions and runs many workshops at home and across the Midlands and South West.
She offers a wide selection of painting workshops from ‘still life’ and ‘landscapes’ to ‘portraiture’, ‘abstraction’ and experimental techniques, using oils, acrylics and collage.
Workshops are suitable for beginners and practicing artists alike, the critique is individually focused with no ‘right’, ‘wrong’ or ‘expected’ outcome, but rather a goal of individual development and original expression.
Available to buy on the day £5: 8” x 8” Ampersand gessoboard or buy here
What to bring: (with links to where to buy)
A colour photograph of your animal or an image on an ipad / tablet.
A black and white print out of your square cropped image as large as you can make it on an A4 piece of paper
A selection brushes eg. Rosemary Ivory Short Flats nos. 2,3,5, Ivory Filbert size 0
A selection of artist quality paints – acrylics or oils oils or acrylics eg. Daler Rowney starter set.
Palette knife – eg. Winsor and Newton size 22
Paper Palette and a box to take your work home in
Oils only: A jar and some low odour thinners/ white spirit substitute for cleaning your brushes, some rags or plenty of tissues to wipe brushes clean.
Optional extra items
‘Liquin’ painting medium if working in oils
A ‘Stay-wet’ palette if working in acrylics
If you need disabled parking or access contact them here – they’d love to help!
57 Abingdon Rd
Dorchester on Thames, Oxon OX10 7LBUnited Kingdom
Dorchester Festival
Dorchester High St
Dorchester on Thames, Oxfordshire OX10 7HN United Kingdom
The biennial Dorchester-on-Thames Festival is one of Oxfordshire’s leading Festivals based in and around the stunning location of Dorchester Abbey.
Since 2005 the Festival has regularly attracted over 5,000 people each year, from serious followers of the arts to schools, families and children of all ages and has raised significant profile and £350,000 for Dorchester Abbey and local charities.
In 2026 they are partnering with local charity Be Free Young Carers, who enable Oxfordshire Young Carers to achieve their full potential by delivering a far-reaching developmental and emotional support network of people and resources in their daily lives, schools and communities.



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