Step 7 of Our Best Friend

Today I worked all over the painting correcting values, colour, and a few details. I also added a pale blue background at the client's request. The client also chose the title of "Our Best Friend" for the painting. This is about 3/4 finished and next I have to correct a few contours and darken more of the values but it's coming along.

Step 6

More work all around the fur darkening and defining the colours and softening some lines.

Step 5

Today I had time to work on this again. I continued blocking in colour all over the fur but it will take many more washes of paint to build up the depth. I also have finished the eyes except for the last touches after everything else is done. I have to decide if I'll colour the background or leave it white so as not to distract from the dog.

Step 4

More work on the fur today. It will go faster once I have all the different colour areas blocked out.

Step 3

Today was more detail work on the eyes and nose and then blocking in more of the subtle shades in the fur.

Step 2

Now that my family have all flown back to their homes my life can get back into a semblance of routine. I was able to work a little more on this painting concentrating on the nose and eyes but also starting to block in some of the washes of colour in the fur. It's hard to get a good photo with so much white of the paper still showing.

New Commisssion

I know it's been awhile since I painted but life got in the way. First there was the xmas chaos, I had family visiting for a month, I had the flu, then my brother-in-law (from my last post) died from his cancer. His celebration of life is this week. But life goes on and the paintings on my "to do" list keep getting longer.

And so, I've started my next commission. This is a memorial painting of a beloved dog. I have wrapped the canvas, drawn it out, and started the first washes. It will become much darker as I add the next washes. I always start with the eyes and nose and once they are right the face will look right. I am also trying different mixtures of colours (on some scrap paper) to get the fur colours right. Hopefully I can get back into painting regularly and update this blog more often.