I don’t get many dachshunds to paint portraits of, so it is lovely to get some. I have done a couple of long haired ones, Basil and Boris. Both of these dog portraits are black and tan doxies. I love black and tan dogs, being the owner of one myself, athough as you know she is a chorkie. You can read about mine here
Bubba’s portrait is going to be 10×10 inches. I decided a square crop would suit him best from the reference photo. I love square portraits, I don’t know why, those and long thin ones. I guess it is something a little different to what I do normally. I will have a long thin portrait to do shortly of 3 cats, but more about that pet portrait another day.
I sketched out Bubba yesterday and tomorrow I will be starting work on this handsome chaps portrait. I am undecided about the background colour yet, something simple and plain not to detract from his handsome face. He has the most gorgeous eyes too!
I have attached the outline sketch below. Tomorrow I will start blocking in the basic shapes to start bringing out his structure and make sure I am happy with everything before I start on the tiny details. Oh and of course the eyes! The most important part of all my pet portraits!
I made good progress on Bubba’s portrait today. Today’s process was to block in loosely the areas of colour. Darks, lights and his tan patches, I try to get them as accurate as possible, but it’s not essential at this point to get it 100% right
In the photo below I think you can see now Bubba is looking more than just an outline and how his structure is forming.
I did take a photo of this stage complete but I can’t find it anywhere. So annoying but hopefully this gives you an idea of this stage.
The next stage is when I start to bring these sections together, softening the edges or lines as there tends not to be an hard edges as they are all softened by the fur. I will gradually work my round my portrait bring them together blending and adjusting any proportions if needed. I don’t use my finger to blend, just the pencils. Fingers tend to add grease to the painting and can end up muddying the colours. I find just softly using the pastel pencils is sufficient to blend and avoids these problems. That’s not to say I don’t use my fingers to blend, but only very occasionally.
Hopefully these photographs demonstrate how I have started to bring the portrait together. Bubba is coming to life!
Work has been a bit intermittent due to illness and Maggie’s spay, but I have still managed to get almost two full days in somehow! Sometimes it’s a bit of juggle and I have to work late and start early, but this is the beauty of being self employed!
I finished putting together Bubba and blending in all the areas and making sure proportions were accurate. I then decided to do the background. I thought a blue would be a nice complimentary colour to the orangey hues in his tan markings.