I completed Lola’s portrait very late yesterday, and without the natural sunlight I opted to wait until today to publish it here for you to see. Just a few colors on my palette for this painting; white, indigo, olive, raw umber, magenta, french ultramarine and yellow ochre. I enhanced her fur a bit more in her portrait than her photo really dictated because she’s got a really pretty coat and I wanted to show that off a bit.

Click here to view the work in progress, if you’d like to see it all together.

I’ve taken a side photo of the panel so you can see the dimension as well.

I just got my internet connection (cable) back about an hour ago, apparently it’s been down all night (thank God I was sleeping, I may have very well chewed off my fingernails waiting for it to come back up!!) I did manage to get a couple of other projects underway while I was waiting this morning.

Hope you’re having a good week!

I’ve completed Lola’s underpainting - it’s pretty rough but you can see now how the coloring all pulls together and her eyes just pop! Love her collar design too, it’s a really girlie pattern.

I’ll put the fan on her portrait and it’ll take a couple of days for this layer to dry. I’ll be working on some other projects for the rest of this week and pick Lola back up on Monday to finalize her portrait.

I’ve finished Lola’s background color. It’s very similar to Kona’s portrait, though I’ve lightened it up a bit using Naples Yellow Light with a touch of Yellow Ochre to pull the light mint and gold in her eyes out into the background. The darks will balance the olive in her collar, with the deep fuchsia base in her collar the combination will be really beautiful.

You can see that I’ve printed several reference photos. Larger for accuracy in color, smaller for accuracy in detail. Her coat color is quite varied in the three photos, the most naturally lit is the puppy photo on the left (c’mon everybody say “awwwww“) so that will be my primary reference for her silver coat color.

I’ll work the eyes/underpainting tomorrow so you’ll see how the colors come together.

I’ve sketched out Lola this afternoon, she’s a beauuuutiful silver lab (reminds me of a Weimaraner). She’s only about 7 months old. A couple of her reference photos show her in this same collar just a couple of months old, and boy has she grown into it! What a beautiful breed, though - honestly I’d never even seen a silver lab until Lola - and now I’ll be keeping my eyes peeled for them!

My client (you can read her blog here) found my Etsy shop and ordered her custom portrait through my shop. Funny thing - I designed her blog for her about a year ago! So cool to get to work with her again. I’m just tickled. :)

I’ll be working on Lola’s background tomorrow.

Caesar’s portrait is complete, pending client proofing. You may notice I’ve changed the collar from blue to red - a last minute tweaking that makes him even a little more bold against the canvas.

Enjoy!

Here’s Caesar’s underpainting. If you’re curious, I don’t use any black in my paintings at all. I haven’t in quite some time. Since there is no “black” in nature, my black consists of various combinations of indigo with raw umber, sap green and/or magenta. I think this produces a much more natural portrait with true earth tones.

You can see that my reference photos aren’t really “perfect”, but I wanted you to see that sometimes, if it’s all you have, it can still work. A few photos that show me personality, coat length and color and a bit of eye color, and I can usually fill in the rest. I know how important it is that the end result replace those photos with a clear, lifelike memory of a pet.

That said, I’ve got Caesar speed drying and I’m going to try to finish his portrait tomorrow afternoon.

I’ve finished the background on Caesar’s portrait. The sides of the piece are a bit darker and makes a nice border frame on the wrapped canvas. I’ll work in the underpainting when this is dry (hopefully tomorrow afternoon).

I’ve started a new portrait today, this is Caesar. He’s a black lab, and I’ll be painting his background (blue), which is really going to set off his portrait nicely. I’ll post another update on this painting after I work in the background.

I finished up Tucker’s second portrait today, the 5×7. I’ve got a photo of both of the paintings side by side so you can see them both completed.