Large Painting of Otto

Otto is coming along nicely: I've lost all the white canvas now and the fur is starting to look more 3-D. As you can see from the previous post, I'm painting the fur in quite a bit more detail than I usually do for a first layer. This is because I'm working on a big canvas and don't want to lose myself in the large spaces. Now the canvas is covered and I'm happy with the proportions of the dog I can start to embellish the detail, add more colours into the coat and correct the tonal values.

It's getting much easier now the days are getting longer, there's more daylight in which to paint which is great as I've got lots of lovely commissions lined up in my studio. It helps with the creative process to move away from the painting I'm primarily working on for a bit and work on another so I can come back with fresh eyes - I've now noticed a few bits on Otto that I need to attend to tomorrow! I'm also enjoying writing some new art classes which are filling up quickly. There are just a handful of places left on the two courses starting in Storrington at the end of the month and there will be a repeat of the portraiture workshops as they are now full. Please visit: www.katesartclasses.com for more information and come and join the creative crowd!

Large painting of Otto

This bright-eyed intelligent looking dog is the next commission up on my easel and it's a big A1 canvas board. I've been itching to start this one as I had a lot of lovely photos to choose from and I thought this pose summed him up well. He seems to love the outdoors and is eager to play. I spent a good time sketching out the fur and getting Otto onto the right part of the canvas for a pleasing composition. I decided to focus particularly on his head and eyes so this will be painted in detail with the surrounding fur and pebbles in soft focus. I established the eyes, nose and mouth first, just to give myself an anchor point. It's quite useful for me to see the photo of the painting with the original photo at the same size on this blog as I'm working with such a size difference on canvas. For the next stage I started painting in the pebbles: I included quite a few different earthy colours in them to start with and then unified them with more greens. I may knock the colours back even more later if they distract too much from Otto. At the third stage I've started painting the shadows in Otto's fur, putting base colours of pinks and browns underneath where the fur covers his ears and eyes. The layers of detail are being applied... I may be some time!

Sophie the Staffy-Rhodesian Ridgeback

This is Sophie, a lively Staffy-Rhodesian Ridgeback. Her owners sent me loads of photos but this was their favourite expression. The size is 16 x 12" and the medium is pastel. I started by sketching her face onto Ingres Pastel paper. Base colours of white, yellow ochre, dark brown, black and pink were blocked in to start with taking care to get the features in the right place. Then I built up the detail from the top left to avoid smudging the drawing and when I was happy with the shaping and general colour values I went over it again with finer detailed pencil pastels, adding whiskers and darkening the eyes and areas around her nose. Her smooth coat really works well with pastels and there's a surprising amount of orange added in to lift the colour!

Two Black Labradors

These two lovely black labradors are now finished. Following on from the previous post the painting entered what I like to call cheerily the 'wrecking phase'. Having established a half decent under-painting the next stage is to add lots of different colour tints that add depth to the final painting. Shades of browns, reds, greens, yellows and white were painted on the background being careful to continue the colours across the canvas. This inevitably means painting over the dogs so the painting gets really messy. Reds and blue were added to the dogs' coats then black and white is added with precision to bring back the correct tonal values. Finally, detail gets added to the foreground and the chewed up log and the final touches of blue, black and white scumbled across the fur to create texture where the light hits it. I finished each stage in the dark this week as it was a tight deadline so the photos were taken in the dark. I'll take a decent one tomorrow in the light to add to my website gallery.

Two Black Labradors

Jet and Ollie, two tinsel-clad Labradors are now on the easel (not literally - my little cat would vamoosh in an instant!). They are being painted on a 12 x 16" artboard but without the festive collars - shame. Their shapes were difficult to put into a pleasing composition, I sketched them the other way around to start with, Jet, sitting down, was on the right. But I decided to swap them back especially as the obligatory log that they like to carry with them on their walk had to be included. I lay down a basic wash of browns in the background, waited for it to dry and started blocking in the shadows and highlights on the dogs. As I've said before, black animals are the hardest to paint well and as these dogs' faces are quite small I used my finest brush to paint the shadows around the eyes - one tiny run of pigment and the dogs could look deformed. Before adding thicker layers of detail on their coats I am concentrating on the background. I want this to look quite painterly as too much detail will detract from the dogs and I want to try and create a subtle dynamic triangular composition to draw the dogs together using light. It's starting to work but I think I'll need to add more colours and shades of green and brown to ground it (unintentional pun - sorry!).

Ben the Jack Russell

This is Ben, a cute, scruffy looking Jack Russell I had on the drawing board at the same time as the last blog entry. I often have a couple of paintings on the go at the same time to keep momentum up in the inevitable 'stuck' periods you get in each portrait. This little chap provided a reason to put my brushes down for a bit and pick up the pastels as he's just so dinky! The portrait is small 6 x 9" on Ingres Pastel Paper. After lightly sketching the main features I started with the light colours first: blocking in most of the white and adding greys and cream (which you can't really see in the photo above). I smudged the colours together then with a sharp pastel flicked on lines for the texture of the fur. It's easier when working small to blend, and almost complete, the lighter areas before introducing dark pastel colours as it reduces the chance of accidentally smudging colours you don't want. Next I went straight for the eyes and nose, using black, browns and a touch of yellow ochre. I put more shadows into the fur, sharpened the pastels and dashed off some lines of white and black fluffy hair around the edges to give him his scruffy look. I tightened up on the details, checked the other photos and discovered he had more warm brown on his left ear and eye which I added, and voila! He is destined to sit proudly framed on a desk - I think he's ready!

Portrait of an albino girl

Here are the last three stages of this portrait. I added more warm tones to the painting before concentrating on the detail in the fabric and on the chair. Then I went back to getting the tonal values right, adding more shadow areas and subtle glazes of yellows, reds and umbers and shading more of the hair and face. Finally, I spent a lot of time fine-tuning the details especially on the face which I purposefully kept very light to give her an almost luminescent angelic quality which is how the photograph felt to me. I hope I've captured her essence.