A PET portrait artist drawing realistic pictures of animals is looking to showcase her skills at an exhibition.

Miss Shannon Mullin originally from Blackburn has honed her talent to make her art look almost 3D.

The former fashion marketing student draws cats and dogs for pet owners and shows some of her process on her social media platforms.

Now, the 24-year-old now living in Garstang is gearing up to showcase her work at various exhibitions in Lancashire.

She said: “I have been doing this for ages in my spare time.

“I started drawing at school drawing my own pets and loved it.

“My mum and dad were showing all their friends at work, and one lady wanted me to draw her pets.

“They were very happy with my work and it just snowballed from there.”

The artist used to work in marketing but left to concentrate on her portraits, taking up a part time job alongside her commissions.

Miss Mullin spends hours labouring away as she admits it eats up a lot of her day to draw.

She said: “I use coloured pencils and use them to build layers up and It takes a long time, it’s time consuming.

“It can take me anything from a week to four weeks to complete one.

“It has taken years of practice to get to this point and sometimes I still feel I could do better.”

She first started drawing when her grandad gave her a book on how to draw animals and learnt how to draw cats and dogs first.

The young artist still has the book as a fond memory of what got her into drawing.

On her process, she said: “There can be up to 20 colours used in one piece, but you wouldn’t know that just by looking at it.

“I want to get into doing more videos and tutorials because there is not a lot out there and people always ask me.

“People love seeing the process, they love seeing how I build up and the time lapses are the most popular, with people saying it’s satisfying.”

Her goal for the year is to start her own YouTube channel and show how she draws.

She said: “I went to an exhibition show of another artist and he invited me to his, but I do not have full details of this yet.

“I think it is important to people when they lose a pet and when I draw them I want to help them in some way to remember their loved pet because it is special.”

To see her work visit her Facebook profile @ShannonMullinPortraits