Hey all, I’ll be finishing up Badger‘s portrait on cam if you’d like to have a peek see over my shoulder. I’ve tested my studio cam in both Firefox and IE and it appears to be showing up well and has a decent refresh rate. You can find it in my sidebar, top right.

I will try to leave a note in front of the cam if I’m going to be away for any extended period of time, and if I happen to shut it off (or if the puppy chews through my USB extension cables while I’m not looking), it’ll say “offline”.

I hope I turned the volume off, ’cause I’m sure you don’t want to hear me sing.

I’ve just finished Badger’s underpainting. Now, don’t be frightened – I know it looks muddy and kinda blech right now, this will all be refined in the next stage, which is the addition of layers and layers of fur. She looks a bit flat, and a bit dark, and her eyes are not as glassy as they will be when I complete the portrait.

She is beauuutiful. I love Huskies, always have. When they are so well taken care of, like this one very obviously is, they are the most wonderful dogs. They love to please their parents and I’ve seen them become very sad and troubled when they go ignored. Very emotional creatures – and stunning, to boot.

I have tossed around the idea of painting on webcam again, especially since I’m working on so many portraits at the moment. I’ll definitely let you know if I decide to do that and give you a link so you can pop in and watch me painting live in my studio.

Yesterday I decided to just snap photos of Claire’s portrait as I progressed and show you all of the stages I go through during a drawing session. If you’re looking for a tutorial on how to draw a portrait, I’m not sure that I am a very good teacher – but if you pick up more on visual cues, you’ll be good to go.

My supplies are very simple – an Ebony extra smooth drawing pencil, a set of Kimberly drawing pencils (a nice variety of hard and soft leads for shading and defined lines), a white block eraser, a kneaded eraser, sharpener, acid free archival drawing paper and a sock, so you don’t get yourself too messy during the process.

I started out measuring and marking the size, 4″ x 6″ on my pad, and worked in the line drawing:

Back in the beginning of 2005, Karen came to me about her baby girl, Maddie, who passed over the rainbow bridge. I remember painting Maddie like it was yesterday – how she tugged on my heartstrings then, and how compassionate and loving I thought her Momma was to have her portrait done. Over the years, I’ve painted all of Karen’s pets and they have definitely all touched my heart and become an extended furbaby family to me. I think about her and her babies regularly, so it was very sad to hear that Callie had passed away.

Part of me was so torn yesterday when I started contemplating her background color. I wanted to paint her face on a cloud with a sky blue background, like Maddie. But I kept being pulled away from that thought and my mind filled with this gold color, a rich warm gold like sunshine was filling the canvas around her. That’s just how it happened, too.

Morris’ background is a really rich, beautiful and leathery chocolate brown color. He just kind of “gave” me this color. Let me try to explain how that works, because to me – the background color is just as much a part of the portrait as the subject itself. It is an extension, a mood. Color conveys feeling, and each pet says something different to me. They’re all individuals, so they deserve more than a standard blanket background color that matches the sofa.

Sometimes, the background color just comes to me while I’m looking at the photos I’ve been given to work from. His reference photo is a bit blurry and small, pixelated with a lot of flash. But even though the reference might be bad, the only thing I really need to see his his personality coming through in the photos. Knowing the anatomy of a cat is extra helpful, and I think since I’ve painted so many cat portraits – the anatomy is embedded in my mind now. With Morris, though, it was the personality that I saw that led me to mix this color for his portrait.

I just felt it, and that’s what I love most about what I do.

Simba doesn’t have much background since it’s a really nice & big macro of his kitty face, so the shot is more of a side view to show how the color wraps around the canvas edge. I chose this color because when looking at his photo, I was immediately drawn to this really cool shade of lime in the reflection of his eyes. Since he’s an orange tabby and he’s just got a hint of the lime in his eyes, it will really make him pop and give the portrait loads of dimension.

Boo and Kiwi’s background are done, they’re a nice grape purple with a deep violet shadow. Green and purple are M’s favorite colors (my client’s daughter), so they’ll be really cool portraits since those will be the primary colors.

I may add more to the background once the birds have been painted, to give them a bit more of a pop art feel. Realism in the foreground against a funky pop art background would be perfect for a teen bird lover, I think!

I chose a really beautiful royal blue gradient for Badger’s portrait. She’s a silver husky with brilliant icy blue eyes so this shade of blue in the background will just make her come alive on the canvas. When the background dries, I’ll work in her underpainting.

Many, many portrait sketches = lots and lots of art to create this week!

Here’s what’s on my easel:

Badger is a certified therapy dog, she is allllways happy. I love that she’s smiling for her portrait. This will be an 8×8 oil portrait.

This is Morris, an orange tabby who recently crossed over the rainbow bridge.  He’ll also be done in oils, on a 6×6 canvas.

I’ve painted Callie before, but this portrait of her will have much more meaning since it is in loving memory.  Another 6×6 oil portrait.

Simba is a stunning orange tabby. Also in oil on 6×6 chunky wrapped canvas.

This yellow-sided green cheeked conure is Kiwi, she’s also having a 6×6 oil portrait. Kiwi and Boo (below) belong to Lisa’s daughter – these are a birthday surprise. So ssssh.

Boo was a beautiful parrotlet that passed away, her portrait pairs with Kiwi’s in 6×6.

This pose of Claire is just gorgeous, big curls falling down into her face – this is the line drawing for a 4×6 graphite drawing that All Adither won in January for giving me the bestest birthday wish.