Portraits: Finished and In-Progress

Earlier today I delivered two dog portraits to a client - Gus the black lab mix & Buddha the samoyed.




I posted photos of them in the initial stages here. Both portraits are on the watercolor Art Board surface, 4" x 4". I used black Micron pen, watercolor (Dan Smith brand) and Prismacolor colored pencils.

Buddha's portrait is a gift from my client to Buddha's owner, so the photo selection was limited and not ideal since she didn't want to divulge why she wanted some photos of him. The photo that had the best expression was really dark on one side, which is why the portrait is darker on the left. Still, it works and I'm pleased with the way it turned out, and more importantly, so was my client!

Here's the reference photo (taken with a cell phone, I believe), along with a second version that I lightened in Photoshop so I could see some of the detail on the shadowed side.



And here's the reference photo for Gus:


This is another Art Board portrait in progress - I also posted the initial stage of this one in the earlier blog post, but here it is again:



This is Cali, the terrier mix. Here I've added watercolor washes on top of the ink. I'll be adding oranges and golds next. Cali is white, tan and dark brown but I'm tweaking the color palette a bit, as I like to do with this style of portrait.

And speaking of portrait styles, this is a very realistic portrait of Breezy the Arabian mare. There's still quite a bit of work left to do, but I'm really happy with the progress so far. Her mane has been a challenge because it's thick and a bit fuzzy. This drawing is approximately 7" x 7" in pencil on Stonehenge paper.