Sneak Peek Friday

All true artists, whether they know it or not, create from a place of no-mind, from inner stillness. - Eckhart Tolle

 Welcome to Sneak Peek Friday everyone!  In lieu of showing my actual desk today, because I'm excited to show what I've been working on all week ...the process of my dog portrait paintings.  My intention is to add it as a page to the tabs at the top of my blog.  Here we go:

Image 1:
ROUGH DRAFT

I do a light pencil sketch from a photo of the dog on watercolor paper.  Then I start blocking in shapes and laying down the lightest color first. 

During this beginning stage, I give special attention to the eyes since they are the soul of the dog and if they aren't correct at this stage, I will never be able to fix them later on. 

Image 2:
INITIAL LAYERS

Next, I start laying down thin washes of color watching that there are no hard edges where they're not suppose to be.  I use 2 brushes at this point...a brush to put on the color and a wet brush to blend and wipe away.

Image 3:
SHADOWS 

Up to this point, there is no actual fur painted.  Even though beautiful Ella is a short hair Vizsla, the hair still needs to be stippled on top of the shading.   I still go back and forth as I work all the areas together as a whole. 

Here's the finished portrait of Ella, 12" x 16", on 140lb. Arches watercolor paper.

Here's the original photo...


To add a final explanation point to my painting, I made a little stamp with a paw print to work my signature around.  

If you want to join us in the "Sneak Peak" fun, just click on  "In the Studio"  and give it a try.

I will be taking a short creative blog break to go on a family vacation through Utah's State Parks.  Hopefully, I can post some awesome vacation photos during our trip. Thanks for stopping by!