Storm is the next gorgeous dog I have on my easel to paint this week. He will worked on alongside Oscar the Westie, who’s pet portrait is the same size.
As usual I have started with a basic outline drawing and then proceeded to paint his eyes. Storm has the most gorgeous eyes and I really want to capturing their piercing beauty in his portrait
Below is the outline sketch for his portrait
Hopefully it’s not too faint and you can see it OK.
I have started on blocking in the basic colours. I chose the grey pastel at paper as he is grey and white and it is a good base layer colour for these colour portraits. I could use brown, either would work but I had grey in stock so it is my preferred choice.
I have used a mixture of cool and warm greys and will continue to do so throughout the portrait
Once all the basic colours are blocked in I can concentrate on all the details. Even when I am at the blocking in stage I make sure my pencil strokes follow the direction his fur lies in. It is very important to do this. It will help make him look 3D or not ‘flat’ and also create the illusion of depth to his coat. Although I am working in 2D media, you want your subject to look 3D and the fur will lie in specific ways over the skeleton and muscle structure.
I had a manic week and sadly I haven’t really been able to finish up Storms blog properly. Now with it being half term it’s going to be a bit trickier. I will get back to it properly if not before, definitely next week and I will be starting a new time lapse for Queenie the greyhounds portrait. I can’t wait to get back to filming.
I am really pleased with how storm turned out and here you can see his portrait framed. It is a lovely light natural wood frame. No staining and faint grain. I haven’t seen this moulding in the flesh before, but it is definitely one I would like to use again.
Sorry about my foot and dogs water bowl in the photo.. Bad or should I say lazy photo editing on my part. I hope you will all forgive me as I have been working since 8.30 this morning and it is now gone 10pm and I am doing blog posts and updating my Facebook page. No rest for the wicked haha!
Here is the finished scan of Storm’s portrait.
I am delighted with how he has turned out, particularly his stunning eyes, which my client asked me to pay particular attention too.
