Newest Pet Portrait

Finished this yesterday and the "Gramma" picked it up today. She was very happy. I hope the Mommy and Daddy are equally pleased. This guy is a 5x7 portrait done in colored pencil. He is a Brown Boston Terrier which is a very rare coloration.

On my easel

Today I have three different meetings to attend so life is getting in the way of doing a completed small piece. But, I still have something to share. My student this morning wanted to start on a portrait of a little girl. This is a not anyone special, it is a little girl she found in a very old Walter Foster book on portraits. The book is so old that the price printed on the cover is $1.00!! In any event, we started on that project this morning. We are working in pastel on Mi-Teintes paper. The size is 9x12. This is as far as we got today. We will work on her again next week. I suspect it will take another two lessons to finish her.

Seminar Project

I just got back from a 3-day seminar with portrait artist Johnnie Liliedahl. Our project was a portrait based on a work by an early 20th century Russian artist and was painted in oils. The portrait was developed by first doing a value scale underpainting in Raw Umber. This is a Flemish old master technique called Bistre. Once the underpainting was completed, the dark areas were painted in layers of transparent glazes. The light areas (skin tones) were painted with opaque mixes. This piece was painted on a 16x20 canvas.

Drawing Course

I have just started working through Ann Kullberg's Draw What You See course. The first step is to do a pre-lesson drawing of a portrait from a photo that is provided in the kit. After you work through the lessons, the last lesson (number 6) is to repeat the same drawing using the tools and techniques you have learned in the course. The before drawing is to be done in under 2 hours, with little or no erasing, and using no "helpers" like rulers or grids. Here is my before. Stay tuned to see the progress.

My new "nephew"

My sister got a new Cavalier King Charlies Spaniel a few weeks ago. She sent me a photo and I have done a colored pencil portrait of little Newton. This one is really small, about 2x3.

Pet portraits are a perfect gift for the pet lover for any occasion. If you are interested in a pet portrait, please visit my website and see how you can order one.

Pet Portrait

I am doing a lot of pet portraits in colored pencil these days. I work from photos and create a line drawing by scanning the photo and sizing it to the size I want my finished piece to be and then tracing the essential elements of the portrait. Of course, the skill is in translating the color, markings, and expression of the animal into a well-painted portrait. If you are interested in having a colored pencil portrati painted of your precious pet, go to my website and you will find ordering information.

This little portrait is taken from a photo of my friend's cat, Ziggy. It is approximately 3x3 and is painted on brown card stock. The portrait is on top and the reference photo is at the bottom of the page.

Testing My Skills

I tried my first colored pencil portrait today. It is far from perfect, but for a first attempt, I am not unhappy. A little work on the skin tones and the eyes will make a huge improvement in the finished work. With some more practice, I will be painting quite respectable portraits. Here is the pencil portrait and the original photo from which I was working. The size is approximately 3x3.

New Pet Portrait - Lucky

I finished up a portrait today that will be a gift for a friend. This is my first portrait using colored pencil. I am very pleased with the result. The reference photo had a very dark background and I liked the idea of the shiny coat against the really dark background, so I painted this piece on black cardstock. The photo is not entirely accurate. It is very difficult to photograph black cardstock because the dark background causes the camera to read colors a little differently. This little portrait is about 4x5 before matting.

New Miniature Paintng

It has been a while since I started this little piece, but here is Sadie. Sadie was painted on a 4x4 gesso board square. The technique was a Burnt Sienna underpainting with oil overlays. The world is made up of dog people and cat people. I am a dog person and I find it very difficult to paint cats. Cats' faces are flatter and have less dimension than dogs'.

Here He Is---MY DADDY!!

I finished the portrait of my father. This is only my third portrait, the second in oils. I am very pleased with the results. The technique of painting a value scale underpainting and then oil overlays makes you really look at your subject and understand the structures without the complication of color. If you are very careful with your underpainting, the color overlays just fall into place. This has become my very most favorite way to paint.

A Portrait of my Aunt

I do not consider myself a portrait painter. This is only the second portrait I have ever painted. The first was a watercolor portrait of my mother. This painting is a 4x4 oil on board painted from a photograph of my Aunt. I have to say I am pleased with the way it turned out, generally. I am planning to send it to her for her birthday.