His underpainting is complete. The next step for this cute little Scottie painting is the darkest darks and the lightest lights.

A little insight: I don’t see black his coat at all. What may appear to you to be black or gray, isn’t. I don’t use even a tiny amount of black oil paint in any of my pet paintings, and haven’t in years. The most natural darks aren’t really black at all in natural light with natural shadows. I was talking to a friend of mine the other day (who is colorblind, go figure), and had a hard time convincing her that clouds aren’t really white, and snow is blue. Now I’ve put her whole color wheel out of whack.

I learned this from Johannes Vermeer. He never painted with black (aka mars black) at all. I believe this is why my pet portraits are always so vivid and lifelike. There’s very little white, and absolutely no black.

Have a look around you today, and really look at the colors of what you’re seeing. I think you’ll be surprised at what you see.

I have the background on MacTavish’s portrait painted now (in oils), really warm gold tones are really going to set off his eyes and black coat (and curls!). It’s overcast today, so the true gold and sepia tones didn’t show up well in this photo, but it’s close. I’ve made a slight revision from my sketch, perking his ear back up. I’ll start working in the underpainting once the background is dry.

Mac Tavish passed away this year, this sweet little black Scottie was adored by his mom, and his Aunt decided to present her with a posthumous keepsake oil portrait of him. I always approach these pieces knowing that a flood of emotions will always be attached to the portrait, and spend a lot of time studying the photos to really get a feel of the personality to bring that out while I’m painting. Mac’s photos make him out to be a real sweetie of a dog – one ear always perky, one flopped over.

I’ll be painting him in oils on a nice 12×16 traditionally wrapped canvas, so his portrait can hang on the wall unframed – or she can fancy it up with a standard frame since it’s the perfect depth.

I plan to work on several pieces over the next few weeks, holidays approaching and my schedule is filling up fast. (That’s a good thing, of course!) I’ll be posting works in progress of Mac and a few other paintings going on in the studio.

I didn’t realize that I was 13 projects behind in updating my Gallery! Yikes! I just finished getting everything uploaded, categorized, prettied up and all that, so I’d love for you to have a browse through my newest additions. You can find the thumb view here, and just pick a category from my gallery there. I’ve added blog designs, custom illustrations, two custom cat portraits, a custom dog portrait, the flowerbed mural, and other paintings and projects on my completed project list for 2006.

Phew!

Now I need to show you the final scans of Mick, Maude and Cheeky. (You can find these in my gallery as well!) Scroll on down, they each get their own entry.

Custom Dog Portrait : Mick
8? x 10? Oil Painting
7/8? Profile Wrapped Canvas
© 2006 Leanne Wildermuth
All Rights Reserved

Mick’s painting is complete and drying, I love how he turned out. Of course I reserve the right to tweak him in the morning, I’ve been painting for several hours and I usually notice things after a few hours away from the easel. (His muzzle looks purple – it’s not that purple, it’s just the lighting.)

Otherwise, I’ll scan and post his final scan when he’s dry.

You can see the progress against his last update here.

Mick’s painting will dry tonight and I’ll add his lightest fur and whiskers, and finalize his portrait tomorrow. You can see the progress against his last update here.

Here’s Mick’s work in progress, this is just the underpainting. Pardon the specks of light reflecting on all the wet paint!

In case you’re wondering what he’s missing, it’s whiskers. That’s always that “one thing missing” until it’s finished, since it’s the last thing I do. He still has a few layers of fur to go before he gets whiskers.

This is another commissioned piece I’m working on, his name is Mick – his portrait is on a nice traditionally wrapped & tucked 8″ x 10″ canvas.

I’ll begin painting all three portraits as soon as I can – I must have brought a stomach bug home from my trip, it hit hard yesterday afternoon and I’m still taking it easy today. I’d like to have these done by the end of the weekend.