Wow, you guys are great! You gave me a lot of really awesome feedback, and I appreciate it! I’m going to show you another photo of Katie, then tell you the photo I’ll paint her portrait from and why I chose it.

Katie, the remote control hog  Katie is more like the remote control hog of a lab. The lovin’ whap you in the arm with that long tail yellow lab. When she looks up at her mom, she’s sweet and wants to please and play at the same time.

She’s a smiley, happy girl and the photo on the right is SO her. Now I didn’t expect you to know that just from a few photos, but I was really curious to know if you would sense her personality from the assortment I put up.

After I studied the photos again and read your comments, I got to work this morning on her sketch.

Now – to choose the hue for the background! (Anyone want to pick a nice shade from another painting in my gallery?)

I painted for 10 solid hours yesterday to complete this gorgeous car in time for my client for Christmas. I’ll have to overnight it, but that’s ok – I am SO excited to show you the final scan of this painting once it’s dry. You can see this painting as it has progressed here. This is my first “official” custom car painting. I’ve done sketches of cars and a colored pencil drawing back in high school – but this rocks. It’s entirely different from pet portraits, obviously – the line work and edges are not so forgiving. I love a challenge though – and I love a good artistic stretch. This was definitely it! This painting has to be seen in person to really appreciate – because the reds overwhelm the lens of my digital camera. It’s a rich, beautiful red with cherry red lightening it up. It’s glossy without being pink – the treads on the tires are deep and show slight wear – the chrome is gleaming. The background color (payne’s gray) is not blue, really, and it looks like she’s sitting on a showroom floor. I’ll scan this piece and share the final detail shots in a couple of days.

I worked on this little 4″ x 6″ Father & Daughter portrait yesterday since I was waiting for paint to dry to get that Sweet Ride finished up (which will happen today). The green is not really grass green, it’s more a drab olive into a nice warm gold. So if you don’t mind, pretend I did an accurate color correction, or just gasp in awe or something dramatic when you do see the true color.

Caution: Wet PaintI just completed this lovely Scottie portrait, several more layers of fur have been added to really make his coat shine and give him dimension. I deepened the shadows just beneath him, and signed the painting – which means I feel finished – however there may be slight changes by my client before the painting is officially complete. I’ll scan him when he’s finished and you’ll see more accurate color, the background tones are hard to capture with a digital.

View the entire progress of this dog painting here.

I wanted to share one more work in progress shot before I finish up this portrait – the darkest darks. I’ll be doing a lot of lightening now, layering up to the lightest lights.

There’s a big difference in this one from the last work in progress, you can view them all here. He’s really coming to life – the next image you see on this dog painting will be the final photo and then the full scan & detail shots when it’s dry.

 

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.

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.

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.