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.

Portrait of an albino girl

Happy New Year and welcome to 2012! The first of a number of New Year commissions for me begins with this beautiful serene old photograph. The client wants me to add colour for the portrait. The young girl in the photo is her grandmother, she is albino and has amazing violet eyes. I sketched the picture on canvas board and started blocking in the background with paynes gray and burnt sienna for warmth. I want to make her face the focal point and give her an almost luminescent quality so starting dark gave me immediate contrast. Next I picked out the lighter areas with a warm cream I mixed up, then marked out the darker areas, like the folds in the fabric and the shadows on the chair, in paynes grey. At this stage I painted the face in monotone to get the shadows in the right place. By the third picture I have added more colours to the background, scumbled red and burnt sienna over her top and onto her cheeks and painted more of the chair. This tonal under-painting with her face being the lightest part of the canvas, gives me a good foundation on which to build up the detail. Keep watching...

Five Pastel Dogs

These five lovely dogs are now finished and ready to go to the framer. I've taken a close up of each one and a photo of them all as a whole portrait. The paper is a much warmer yellow than my camera, I ran out of proper daylight as the nights are still drawing in! But I'm pleased with how they all work together and hope this will make a great Christmas present.

Five Pastel Dogs

Oscar the black labrador and Taylo are the next dogs to be started. Ripley, Koda and Loki have been improved - more orange and light pink was added to Ripley's coat and his collar finished, Loki's tongue and muzzle have been drawn in and blue, yellow and brown has been added into the two black dogs' coats to give shine. It's getting there!

Five Pastel Dogs

This Christmas commission takes five very different dogs and brings them together on one portrait. The customer sent me loads of brilliant high resolution photos of all the dogs running around outside and a brief write-up on the character of each dog. It's almost impossible to get a load of dogs to pose well for just their individual photo let alone try to get them to pose altogether, so a portrait is the best plan! This portrait is just over A2 size. I'm using Fabriano Tiziano Pastel Paper as it holds the pastel really well and the paper colour is cream (though you can't tell from most of the photos). First I sketched out each dog then started applying pastel from the top left to reduce the chances of smudging as I work. This is just the first layer of pastel but I'm pleased with the outcome so far. Just got to hope I don't rest my hand in the wrong place when I start to apply more detail on the next round!

Frejya - Black Labrador

I've now finished Frejya having built up her coat with fine brush strokes to create fur on her left side. In the background I added more detail to the leaves and grass especially in the foreground then when it was all dry I scumbled a thin golden/white paint over the background to knock it all into the distance and create the early morning mist. Over the dog's right side I scumbled some more to show the breath catching the sunlight. I added tiny dots of yellow and white at the edges of the fur to create a lovely backlit glow.

Frejya - Black Labrador

This is Freyja - a black Labrador needed as a present for Christmas. I've gone from huge to tiny in the last two commissions, this one is 6 x 9". The original photograph is beautiful: it looks like it's been taken on a crisp autumnal morning with sunlight coming across the park and highlighting the leaves, the grass and the edge of Frejya's coat and breath. This is just the first three stages of under-painting. I've had to invest in some smaller brushes so I can get the detail correct as I've noticed most of my little brushes are looking a bit ragged - the old ones are great for grass and fur though!