Portraits Underway . . .

Just thought I'd share the early stages of a few dog portraits that I've started.

The first three are 4" x 4" on the Art Board surface (watercolor paper mounted to an archival board). The last one is a larger piece on a 9" x 12" Aquabord.


This is Buddha, a Samoyed - a white and very furry breed. So far, I've used black ink on his nose & eyes, some white and pale blue color pencil around the edges of his fur and watercolor for the background and other colored areas. I put the color pencil on first, to resist the paint at the edges of the dog. Some paint bled in past the pencil on the left side, so I scrubbed/lifted a bit of it off. That side will be in more shadow, so it's not a problem. Since Buddha's fur is all white, I'll tweak the color palette on this painting to be similar to this portrait I did of Bailey. Buddha's portrait will have more "floof" and less curl texture than Bailey's.


Cali, a terrier mix, has more dark colors on her than Buddha, so you see more ink work here. I've used a black Micron pen for the ink. Next, I'll paint the background blue and then Cali. She's brown, tan and white, so I'll paint her in shades of purple and orange with pale purple for the shadows on her white areas.


On Gus, a lab mix, I've done a lot more work with the black ink, since he's a black dog. He's wearing a bandanna which will be teal, with Gus in shades of purple/blue. I haven't decided yet, but I think the background will be a purple-tinged blue.


And lastly, this is Brogan, an Irish Wolfhound. I took reference photos of him when he was younger and then over a year later when he'd matured. My client wants both stages of his life depicted in his portrait. Young Brogan is in the upper right corner. For this portrait, since it will be more detailed and realistic, I'm using the Aquabord, which has a coated surface that allows for scratching, along with my application of ink, watercolor & color pencil. So far, I've used ink for the darkest areas and watercolor for everything else. I use a technical pen filled with India ink for the Aquabord portraits. The next step will be to scratch in detail and texture. I made this video of a German Shepherd portrait done with the same technique.