Michael and pug puppy

This is Michael who is about to turn 21 with his new(-ish) Pug puppy. I have been commissioned by his relatives as a birthday gift to paint him in pastel on A3 pastel paper. I chose a velour pastel paper in dark grey and sketched Michael with the puppy closer to his face and with a more natural grin using these two photos as reference. Once happy with the composition I blocked in the main colours with my Conte pastels. I had to mix the colours as the flesh tint was too orange so I used white, cream pencil pastel and pink to get the skin tones about right. Next I sharpened my pastel pencils and put the darks in accurately, concentrating on the shapes of the eyes, nose, ears and mouth. I wanted to draw the T-shirt quite sketchy to keep the focus on both faces. I added red, blue and grey as well as browns into the shadows but kept my palette fairly limited. Lastly I tightened up on the details, added a tiny amount of shadow to the background and re-visited all of the photos provided to focus on the likeness, especially on the dog. I think I've got them but will have a look with fresh eyes again tomorrow!!

Sidney

My latest pastel portrait is of a very sleepy dog called Sidney. I did a portrait of another sleepy dog of theirs called Daisy and they have come back again, this time wanting a special birthday gift. I sketched the basics onto an A4 sized grey Velour Pastel Paper then picked a white pastel to block in the shine on his coat. I used oranges and browns to block in other areas of colour especially on his ginger fringe which apparently is his main feature! I worked on the picture with other brown pastels, picking out subtle shade changes, and then put black into the shadow areas. The final picture in the series is a bit of a leap as lots of details have been put in including the eyes, with pastel pencils. Shades of green and blue have been added to enhance the red/orange hues and finally a hint of the sofa Sidney is snoozing on is hinted at! It's a dogs' life...