Growing up in Thorne, South Yorkshire Andrew Howard the artist behind Yorkshire Pet Portraits has always been a creative person claiming it is fundamental to who he is.

Here we find out 10 things you didn’t know about Andrew Howard.

1. An artist that inspires Andrew Howard is Terence Cuneo, he could paint anything from still life or even not so still in oil paints. Terrence’s paintings show a natural association with engineering subjects. Andrew discovered Terence by chance, finding that they have the same birthday, albeit with a 66 year or so difference.
2. Andrew went to Coventry University to study Industrial Product Design. It is here where he began developing a real love of painting with oils whilst studying at University. To many it may seem quite an unusual link but being naturally creative there is a lot of synergy between the two.
3. The artist’s favourite food is steak and chips; however he does enjoy a Yorkshire pudding and is partial to anything chocolate.
4. Besides painting and drawing Andrew’s hobbies consist of playing badminton, horse riding and classic cars. He often devotes his days off to car shows as well as visiting stately homes and spending time by the seaside or immersed in the countryside with friends and family.
5. An interesting fact about Andrew is that he is a big James Bond film fan.
6. One of Andrew’s proudest achievements is creating ‘The Saint’ book covers. Never having designed a single book cover before, he was commissioned to design original artwork for the latest editions of the original 35 Saint stories for Hodder & Stoughton. Being a huge fan of the Saint adventures, Andrew set to work designing a simple and striking set of covers that reflected the nature of the stories.
7. Andrew’s favourite animal is a dog, being either a Labrador or a Retriever.
8. He is not so keen on snakes and reptiles, however this does not mean the artist wouldn’t paint them!
9. A favourite piece of artwork that Andrew has created is a horse painting of ‘Mary in the Mirror’. A photo shoot was organised by Yorkshire Pet Portrait’s which provided Andrew and Flo, who is the horses owner, with some surprising results and great original photographs to use as the basis of future paintings. They had barely started the photo shoot and were discussing what shots they were after when they turned around to see Mary the horse gazing at herself in the mirror. As soon as Andrew saw this, he knew that this was the shot. Andrew couldn’t photograph it quick enough and hoped that Mary wouldn’t move before he had captured the pose. The painting is an oil painting that took hours upon hours to create, making sure he had captured all the fine detail.
   Another of Andrew’s favourite pieces of artwork is the Mallard and Flying Scotsman steam locomotives that are painted in the medium of oil paints. This kind of work is where Andrew makes a link to the artist Terrence Cuneo.
10. For Andrew, the best part of painting a pet portrait is seeing the joy and excitement in the recipient when they see their pet portrait for the first time.

  For further information on Yorkshire Pet Portraits visit www.yorkshirepetportraits.co.uk or call 07926 254241