I have been procrastinating about this painting for a while. I normally paint the crazy watercolours for myself so I was excited and nervous to get a giant dog portrait commission of a greyhound!

This piece is a rather epic size of 30×30 inches, the largest commission I have ever painted!

I am afraid I have to confess I used a projector to get the image on the canvas as my arms weren’t really long enough to stretch out and easily get the proportions right. I also did a mini sketch to make sure my client was happy with the colours I used.

20171016_104244Above is the mini sketch. I think I will send it with the large painting and they can have a mini painting too!

Here you can see where I have placed the masking fluid. This ensures that these parts of the canvas stay white. A lot of this placement is guess work, but I find leaving white makes the watercolours much more vibrant. And yes I am crawling around on the kitchen floor doing this as my studio isn’t big enough!

20171018_102227 Painting watercolour on canvas is very different to paper. I have to coat it with a special ground first and when you apply the watercolour it stays wet for a lot longer. Now I am used to it I love it, but it was a bit of a learning curve!

I have to work in more stages while I wait for some parts to dry. Here is the background painted.20171018_105825Oh and his nose!

I waited for the background to be virtually dry ad then proceeded to paint Prince.

20171018_151605Sorry the photo isn’t very good, but it was raining and there was no way I could take a photograph outside as all the watercolours would have run!

When he was dry I removed the masking fluid and added the black outline. He is now getting a good coat of varnish and when that is done I will take a final photograph!