Painterly Pet Portraits

 What a wonderful surprise this portrait was.  I adore painting light colored dogs, there is so much surprising color you can work into light hues.  I was initially a little hesitant about the composition.  I needed to piece together separate photos of these two beautiful lab dogs, and it took a lot of trial and error to come up with this combination.  I think with the background it works great!  What do you think? 

Finished 

 Half Finished

 Beginning

Each stage shows you something different about the process of fine oil painting.  In the beginning, I simply lay out the colors.  It is a very unflattering beginning, but you need a strong base to start from. 

In the second stage I have filled in a few more details, tackling the most glaring issues.  Mainly the neck, lips, cheeks and eyes.  These features are most important to a portrait, once you have them in place, the rest is gravy! 

To reach the finished portrait above, I obviously worked on the background, but the white shoulder straps were equally as important.  Leaving them under painted would have done the rest of this work a disservice.  View a larger version of the finished piece in my Other Commissions gallery.   

The word of choice for this painting was fast.  If you look closely you can tell how thick that white paint is piled on.  That's one of the greatest challenges I face sometimes-- getting my whites to be white!  Oil paint just mushes together and it is hard to get color definition sometimes.  You can combat this with a few different methods.  I am slightly lazy and when painting fast, just tend to apply more paint in a thick layer.  But if you're not in a rush, there are tools or rags you can use to wipe away paint applied previously.  This is helpful, but I rarely do this, I just take a break and let it dry.  This took about 45 minutes. 

Part of my painting-a-day series, this little painting I love!  What a funny collection of stuffed animals.  I am redecorating my bedroom, and unfortunately, these little guys lost their display spot.  I decided if I couldn't keep them out on display due to lack of space, I would at least paint them before they got put away for who knows how long.  Hope it puts a smile on your face!

I am getting into the good habit of completing a small daily painting.  This painting is one of the first in this vein.  Its actually done from plastic limes, so it was a challenge to make them look real!  I'm pleased with how it turned out, I love the unusual composition.