Digby, is beautiful, all dogs are beautiful. He is a gorgeous labrador with a white stripe and my client has commissioned his dog portrait for her sisters birthday. I was sent a lovely selection of photos but it was stressed to me how important it was his white stripe was included in his painting. I played around with crops and this is the one we settled on. You can see how handsome he is in this and I could’t wait to get started!
I sketched out Digby on brown Pastelmat paper, mainly because that is what came to hand first! I am note sure if you can make it out as it is really, really faint! Sometimes I wonder how I manage to see the sketch on the paper!
I often feel like I am repeating myself , but then I start re mapping out the outline with a black pencil, this is because Digby is black, well predominantly black. But if it was a white dog I would use white etc. Just because it would make it hard to cover over the line. From there I start mapping out the shapes created by the shadows and highlights falling across Digby, training to refrain from too much detail, you know I am a detail freak hahaha!
I came back to check this blog as I had a feeling I hadn’t uploaded the finished article! It was the week everything ended up going Pete Tong due to Nicola breaking her arm wasn’t it?!
Anyway I thought I should upload Digby’s finished portrait for you to see. I am really pleased with how the background turned out, an so was my client. So happy all round. Another commission well done.
