She’s finished! I completed Gingie’s portrait yesterday – it took a bit longer than I had anticipated because of the size of the piece, the very fine fur detail and the length of time that I can paint fur each day. I spent nearly 3 hours on her ear alone!

It was well worth it though, the completed portrait is absolutely stunning. I am so pleased with how it turned out.

I’ll be sending the proof along to my client and will post the final scan once the painting is dry and varnished.

Enjoy!!

I’ve completed the brick patio background on Max’s portrait today, and I’m quite pleased with how it turned out! The stone is wrapped around to the sides, as well as his tail! The drop shadows are already in place for Max to come alive on canvas. His soft, creamy golden fur will stand out so well against this stone backdrop. I’m really excited to get his under painting going!

This is still quite wet and will be for a few days, so I’ll pick back up on this portrait the beginning of next week.

Stay tuned for more progress on this painting!

If you’d like to inquire about a custom portrait, you can do that through either my contact or quote request forms. You can also shop direct (check out through Paypal) through my shop, I have a variety of single subject custom portrait packages already set up!

I’ve completed the under painting of the background bricks for this adorable little puppy portrait today, and thought you might like to take a peek!

The bricks have a base color of Payne’s gray, indigo and white. I’ll be adding more natural colors tomorrow for the rock detail, as well as including some bits of moss , to really give them a lot of texture and depth.

This painting will take just a bit longer to complete as the indigo has a 2-3 day dry time even using a rapid-dry medium.

Stay tuned … more to come!

I’ve completed the under painting for Gingie’s portrait this afternoon, it’s coming along quite nicely, and I should be finishing this lovely Beagle portrait by the end of the week.

For those artists out there wondering what my palette is, I’m using all of my standard colors plus one or two: yellow ochre, naples yellow light, magenta, burnt umber, raw umber, burnt sienna, sap green, indigo, french ultramarine and white.

I paint ultra-thin, so my first layer consists of darks and shadows that will give me a good base to start layering various shades of fur in additional layers. Her muzzle and chest will be much, much lighter once those layers of fur have been applied.

Happy Monday!

I’ve finished Gingie’s background and wanted to get that up for you to see – the color is a beautiful sap green lightened with naple’s yellow light, so it’s a wonderful, warm green that will compliment her fawn and white colored coat very nicely. It looks a little cooler in this pic only because I’ve got snow blocking my studio skylights, everything has a cool blue tint to it today. (Snow, snow, go away!)

I’ll post another progress of her under painting once it’s ready!

I’ve got another dog portrait on my easel – this is Max! What a cute little goldie boy – he has been sniffing around where he shouldn’t be so he’s got a bit of dirt on his nose that you’ll see on the final progress of his portrait.

Quite a cute photo to begin with – he’s sitting on a gray cobblestone so I’m wrapping it around to the sides and bringing his tail around to the side, too! This will be a super cute puppy painting that his parents in Sweden will cherish for years to come, even after he’s a full grown dog and not as fond of having dirt on his face!

I’ll be working Max and Gingie’s portraits over the next week or so, alternating days while one is drying, working the other.

Stay tuned for more painting progress shots!

I’m starting the new year off with a new dog portrait! This is Gingie, one of two sweet Beagles that I will be painting portraits of.

I am working Gingie’s portrait on a nice sized canvas, 12″ x 12″ with a 1-3/8″ deep gallery wrap so the edges will be painted as well, and it won’t require framing.

It’s difficult to process the size of the piece – so I placed my brushes beside her sketch on canvas so you can get a better idea how large the portrait is. See that little blue brush leaning off to the right? That’s what I’ll be using to paint her fur. I would venture to guess that her portrait is life sized – if not slightly bigger.

Under painting progress shots coming soon!

I’ve just completed this gorgeous memorial portrait of Effee, a very sweet greyhound who is unfortunately no longer with us.

(update: swapped out images for a daylight photo.)

My schedule got a little wonky there and I lost some time so I’m a little bit behind but working steadily to get caught up again! I still have a week or so available before Christmas so if you’re wanting to gift a portrait to a friend or family member, please do get in touch (use my contact form or quote request form in the menu above), I’d love to paint for you!

I’ve just completed Stacie and Foo Foo (aka A Girl and Her Bunny) – what a sweet portrait this turned out to be, with the bunny love and the feelings I get when I look at this precious moment!

Of course I gave my own Dusty bunny some love while I painted, too, and she also helped as a reference when I painted Foo Foo’s nose. It’s always good to have a live model on hand. (Need to remember this for future paintings of loveable furry things that I do not have in my family yet.)

It’s been a while since I painted a person in oils, and funny thing – I used the exact palette I always use. Natural skin tones can be achieved with just five colors – yellow ochre, magenta, white and sap green for the majority and the deepest shadows, lashes & brows were done using raw umber tinted with magenta. I’ll be painting a couple more humans here in the next few weeks, so I’ll get plenty more skin time very soon!

Enjoy, and have a great weekend! I hope you’re healthy and keeping your snouts and hooves clean!

(snort, snort… swine flu… get it? We’ve got it!)