This new commission is a gift from a lady to her son who is 40 on the 20th March this year - exactly the same as me!!! I've never met anyone whose birthday is on the same date as mine let alone the same year. Anyway, I started by sketching the dogs onto a 12 x 16" canvas board, painted in the background and picked out the eyes, nose and mouth with black paint. Then I built up texture using texture paste which obliterates most of my pencil marks so by painting in the background, which I just want to be flat, and the features, I stand a better chance of keeping everything in proportion. After leaving it to dry overnight I painted the grass then started adding the shadows and main features of each dog. After that I set to work on the black spaniel, Jake, making sure I painted in the highlights of his coat where I could make them out on the photo (black animals are the hardest to paint well). Then I gave Max, the cream and ginger spaniel, an undercoat and have left it all to dry. I'm not even half way through the painting process yet: when I next go back to it I will begin to build up the layers of colour to create a more 3-D effect, correcting the colours as I go and referring to the other photographs supplied. This is the bit that takes the most time but worth it for the end result!
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