Another black Labrador but in pastel

This is Bramble, owned by a couple who share exactly the same birthday with each other (how cool is that?!) and the portrait is a surprise birthday present. The size is 12 x 16" on cream Canson Pastel Paper and started, as always, with a light drawing to get the main features mapped. Then I chose a reddish brown to paint into the shadows and white for the highlights. I added grey for the midtones and blended them together to lose the texture of the paper. It's useful to put all three primary colours into a black coat to stop the darks from looking dead so I reached for a blue pastel and picked out the areas that I could see had a blue hint. After blending them all together I used three different types of black pastels to lay into the shadow areas, blending and checking tonal values and shapes as I go. Not a lot seems to change in these final stages but depth is created by building more layers of colour: cream, blue, yellow ochre, purple, white and brown. The final touches of her name and my signature completes the commission!