Portrait step-by-step

When I got this dog portrait commission I was like, "Yea!" Because, it's a load of fun bringing pets to life on canvas.

So, this is a painting of Abby. She recently died, and her owner (sweet lady) wanted a painting to remember her by. The lady described her as gentle and a little mischievous.

Here's a synopsis of the week-long project:

After receiving the photo via email, I sketched out the portrait on notebook paper (just the cheap spiral kind...why not?), then used tracing paper to transfer the image to canvas. This was followed by...more sketching. One of my least favourite steps, the sketching process takes me FOREVER. Okay. Moving on...

Finally time to paint!

And, yeah, I know these first steps look really sloppy. During this part, I just take deep breaths and tell myself it'll get better. 

 I start by just blocking in the main colours, moving my rake brush in the direction the fur is growing. Also, I choose the darkest shades of fur, lightening as I add layers.

Adding detail to eyes, then to fur, painting lighter layers of fur over darker layers to create depth, using poor sentence structure... 

Starting to look like a dog at last! Same rule of thumb here: light layers go over dark layers. I paint the brown and yellow into the eyes to give them more animation, and enhance the brows.

Then I paint the background. 

Right. I know you're thinking this looks like a weird canine version of the Cheshire Cat...don't worry. I'll fix it.

See? She's not a floating head! (sigh of relief) But she kinda looks more like a golden Newfoundland instead of a golden Lab. And she's supposed to be a golden Lab. You knew that...right?

 Okay, thinned her down a little.

 I add a mixture of white and yellow for the top details of fur, then darken the muzzle and define the nose better. But she's not done.  Is that left ear driving anybody else crazy? And she needs to look younger.

There! I made her a little more "youthful" by adding gold to her face, defining her muzzle a little more, and cropping her body.

Mrs. K (owner) was satisfied with the pic I sent her, so (yippee!) I mailed the finished product today.

Well, I'm sure there must be some clever and tactful way to wind up this post, but I can't seem to think of one. So, I guess I'll just stop here.

Thanks for lookin' in!

Yours,

callie