I’ll be finishing up MacTavish today and tomorrow. This is the current progress shot, his eyes and nose are complete and I’ve started deepening the fur around his eyes.

You can view all of his portrait painting progress here.

 

Finally, the underpainting is complete. You can see this painting as it has progressed here.

It’s made an amazing transformation, but these are still just the basic colors. (fyi: the license plate has been blurred for display on the web.) I’ll paint the car all over again with highlights, lowlights and make further enhancements to the midtones. You’ll be able to hear the engine purr when I’m through with her.

Tidbit: These are the brushes I’m painting with, on a 16×20 canvas – that should explain why this is such a long process.

Exhibit A: The fake smile pose. The talk about the natural smile, the begging for them to put away the fake smile (and the blue gum). Just be loving, and natural, I say.

Exhibit B: The loving, natural pose. Older sister gives younger sister a nice big squeeze, resulting in tears because “she squeezed me too hard and it hurrrrts”. Tears welling, hair mussed up, no one is happy. Now is the time (because I have the patience of a squirrel) for the please, please pleeeease cooperate RIGHT NOW talk.

Exhibit C: I can make her smile, mom! See? Ugh. She hated that, don’t ever do that to her again. Hands to yourself, please.

Exhibit D: I’m happy now! Peace out! Peace on Earth and stuff! Haha! I can count to two! Or I’m a hippie child! You decide!

Exhibit E: I’m falling off the stool, mom. Woaaahhh MOM! She pushed me!

Exhibit F: Giggling ensues, because now sissy is on the floor being dramatic about how everything in her body just broke. Thanks a LOT. Now is the time for the scoot your butt over a little bit so your sister can squeeze in right next to you talk. The coersion of being sisterly talk. The begging for it all to be over talk, because I can’t take one more second of all the drama, and all mommy REALLY wants for Christmas is a DECENT PICTURE OF HER BEAUTIFUL WELL BEHAVED CHILDREN. Really. That’s ALL. I. WANT.

And then, they did it. And they proved to me once again that even though for a half an hour they can drive me absolutely out of my gourd, in the end, they’re perfect little angels that you can’t help but love and want to squish and kiss and huggle and snuggle.

That concludes our portrait photography session. If you send your children to my house for Christmas portraits, please remember – no blue gum allowed.

Here’s a sketch of another custom portrait painting I’ll be working on soon, in oils. It’s 4×6, a nice little size (the same as Ashley, actually), and the pose is just perfect – I just love this composition.

I’m still working on the other two large paintings (the GTO and that cute little Scottish Terrier), and will post more progress shots on them soon! Those should both be done by the end of this week.

While I was waiting for paint to dry, I finished up the new Thursday Thirteen Forum , so if you’re a Thirteener, you can stop in and register for the new hangout. Cool, eh?

I also shopped for two little princesses yesterday so they could be prettiful for their piano recital lastnight. I’d post pics, but all I have are videos, and they’re lopsided. Anyone know how to rotate a video? (Anyone else want to whomp me in the head the next time I try to capture video lopsided?) You’ll have to trust me when I say my children are brilliant piano players, and you’ll have to believe me when I add that not one piano student played better than my girls.

I was totally impressed by all the students, really. It was amazing to hear them all at different stages of learning how to tickle those ivories. I am also excited to see how the instructor impacts my daughters over the course of the year.

* * * * * *There are several of you whose addresses I must have within the next week, if you know what I’m sayin’ … (Christmas Cards. Want one?) So please drop me an e-mail with your addy, so I can do what I need to do! If you think I’m not talking about you, you’re wrong. I am. You can use my contact form, or just e-mail it to me at Leanne at mydomain dot com. Replace mydomain with my domain name. You know. hehe.

For those of you who guessed red, of course she’s red! Sweet rides are always red, aren’t they? I must just be one of those. Except my dream car is a ’66 Mustang – midnight blue with cream pony leather interior. (So if you ever run into one of those for sale, I have to know!)

This is just a partial underpainting. I wanted to lay the red down first because the bulk of detail work will be on the body of the car. Once this layer is try, I’ll finish up the interior, then move to the rims and bumper/grill area, tires, then the underpainting will be complete.

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.

Custom Cat Portrait : Ashley
4? x 6? Oil Painting
Canvas Panel
© 2006 Leanne Wildermuth
All Rights Reserved

OooOOOo she’s a ghost car right now, but before long (and after the background dries – which is gray, btw – on an overcast day) you’ll see what color she is. Feel free to make some guesses, just for fun – and for those of you who figured out the make & model – you’re right. It’s a GTO, and I’m not sure what year.

I’m pretty excited about adding a car painting to my gallery, if you can’t tell!

psst…KDiddy – what year is she? And is she a she? She has to be.