Tuesday, January 05, 2010

German Shepherd and Jack Russell custom portrait painting

This pet portrait has been commissioned as a birthday present for the joint owner. Several seperate photos have been supplied by email and I have printed them out and selected the ones I feel will work best if I group the 'chums' as if sitting together. The German Shepherd has a wonderful noble demeaner and the Jack Russell appears to be laughing.


I'm using a 10x12 inch stretched canvas and began by making a drawing in pencil. If you would like to see progress of this painting, you're welcome to come back and take another look as work progresses over the next few days.


In session 2 I began by loosely adding a light wash to both animals. I then roughly blocked in a background. The colour of the background, as with everything else, will evolve as the painting progresses.


Session 3: Beginning to add more layers. Long way to go.

Session 4: More layers added and starting to gradually build up colour depth and detail.


Session 5: Worked on the German Shepherd and background, adding depth and shadows. In case you're wondering about the spooky 'blank' eyes..... painting eyes is my favourite part of a portrait project and I like to leave them as a treat for myself as long as possible. I feel it's time for the eyes will get some attention during the next session.

Session 6: More layers ... and today we have eyes!


Session 7: Worked on adding detail and texture to the German Shepherd. Lots of work to do on the little Jack Russell next time.


Session 8: Added shading and texture to the Jack Russell and cleaned up her profile. More detail on the German Shepherd also, softening some of the fur texture and adding detail overall. Before I go any further, now is a good time to get feedback from the client, so that any amendments can be made before fine detail added.


Session 9: Lots of progress and changes on the Jack Russell. In consultation with the client it was agreed to bring the ears forward and she does look so much better as a result. More layers and refining.


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