Bella - a black lab in oil paint

This is Bella, a beautiful black lab in a beautiful pose but the photo is not very sharp so the owner sent me a few others to work with that have more detail. Black animals always offer the greatest challenge as it's tricky getting depth in a painting when the highlights are a lighter shade of black! Anyway, I started by toning my 9 x 12" size canvas board with a mixture of cadmium yellow and yellow ochre. Then I sketched Bella over the top, marking in where her features are as well as I could. Then I scumbled the background with a mixture of ultramarine blue, sap green and raw umber into titanium white. I let this layer dry before mixing burnt sienna with ultramarine in varying mixes for the first undercoat. This layer establishes the highlights, shadows and direction of fur growth. Next I added a little white to pick out the high spots as well as layering in more tones of mixed black. With another layer added, this time with more blue in the mix, I concentrated on painting burnt sienna into the eyes and creating the shape and highlights. Here I got a little unstuck as the photo was so vague and I ended up messing around with the levels in Photoshop and painting from my laptop screen. I changed my paintbrushes to get finer brushstrokes as I added more blue, white, umber and sienna on different layers and at last the dog is taking form and looking less flat! I added more colour to the background and painted these onto the dog in order to soften the edges and add the right colours that would be reflected on the coat. Finally, black and brown shades are painted back over and lifted out of the highlighted areas. Bella is now finished!

Repeat Custom

It's always a treat when a customer returns to commission another portrait and this one is to go alongside 'Magic' which I completed in 2012. Just one photo was sent, which was really good quality so I chose a piece of sand coloured 12 x 16" Murano pastel paper and got started. After drawing the outline I mapped in the lightest areas with a white pastel and chose a yellow ochre for the shadow areas. I smudged the colours together before selecting a dark brown for the shadows on the legs and smudged those together using a cream pastel pencil, before getting to work on the head using an assortment of brown sharpened pastel pencils. This was quite fiddly to get right but once I was happy I took the same reddy browns, greys and ochres and added them to the rest of the coat. At stages the dog looked almost shaggy so cream and white pencils were used to push the pastel and smooth it out. Finally, I grabbed a handful of greens, browns and yellows for the grass and tried to create a similar patch as I did for the previous portrait. I think they'll look great together!

Feline Friends

Two feline friends are the subject of my latest commission. The portrait is an A4 pastel on cream Daler Rowney Ingres Pastel Paper, the shade of which was tricky to choose as I wanted both cats to stand out equally. I considered a mid beige so the ginger cat would be lighter and the blacker cat darker but decided their eyes might disappear and it might not work, so light cream was selected. I opted for two photos where the cats could be drawn as if they might be side by side and sketched their basic shapes before mapping out the ginger markings on both cats. This initial application of pastel sits on the paper surface and looks very grainy so I smoothed it using a cream pastel pencil, which you can see in the second of the series. This process is repeated using a range of colours from bright reds, oranges and yellows on the ginger cat, to brown, grey, black and even green on the coat as well as the eyes. Once I was happy with the balance of tones I flicked in some white whiskers and moved onto blocking in the really dark areas on the other cat. I used cream, dark brown and grey pastel underneath the shiny areas of the coat and flicked in all sorts of colours and shades to keep the markings vibrant. I hope I've captured them!

Macon and Rully - Great Pyrenees

These two lovable dogs are now finished. As this is for a special birthday present I have been working on this solely to get it completed for the celebration party and the frame has been made at the same time. From the last blog entry many layers and glazes of paint have been applied, starting with the greens of the woods and foliage in the background. When the level of detail was becoming too much I moved my attention to Macon (on the right) and spent time getting the tonal layers in his fur more accurate using warm umbers mixed with varying levels of ultramarine blue and then when dry, layering titanium white over the top to create depths of fluffiness. This 'push and pull' of dark to light and back again is eventually what gives the portrait depth but it goes through some scarily dark changes to get there, which I've not shown. Next, ultramarine and crimson were mixed in varying levels with white to create the bluebells which I randomly painted in with large brushstrokes and added more detail to the trees. At this point I decided the greens were too bright so painted a dark glaze across the whole of the picture to knock the intensity back and lifted out the dogs before it dried. Unfortunately I dropped my camera last week when I leapt out of my car so the second last picture was taken with a tablet and is a bit grainy. Never-the-less, you should still be able to see how both dogs are looking more 3-D and the bluebells are more detailed. Finally, details were sharpened and their fur softened and brightened. As this is in oils the portrait has a lovely rich lustre and I can't wait to see it in its decorative frame.

Macon and Rully - Great Pyrenees

This latest commission an oil painting of Macon and Rully, two fun-loving Great Pyrenees dogs who like snapping at builders' bottoms! I visited them in their new home to take their photographs and after an albumful of snaps, we settled on the two photos which best describe each individual personality. The owners wanted them facing each other and set in local bluebell woods so I sourced some pictures from a photographer friend of mine as well as the internet and mocked up some photo-composites. After playing around with the composition I ordered a fine linen canvas size 24 x 30" from Harris Moore who make them to measure. I primed the canvas and painted a sunshine yellow in a mixture of cadmium, lemon and ochre. When that had dried I drew the dogs in place. Using titanium white and burnt umber I started to block in the main areas of tone, mixing crimson and ultramarine with the umber to get some rich darks. Next I concentrated my paintbrush on getting some texture into the background and painted in some trees. With a finer brush I started work on their faces and continued putting more shadows into the background to make the white of their coats leap out. The oils I use dry relatively quickly so I can come back the next day and apply more layers without too much merging of colour. The next stage of the process is what my artist friend, Robert, always calls the 'A' level phase' - when the initial painting, with it's naive brush strokes and energy, gets lost as layers of detail are applied. It's easy to think you are wrecking the portrait at this stage but it is a necessary part of the process in order that depth and accuracy are achieved. Right, better get back to painting...!

Laura's 21st birthday portrait

This is Laura, she's 21 very soon so her mum has commissioned an A3 pencil portrait for her birthday and sent me some pictures of pencil drawings other artists had done so that I could see the style of drawing she wanted. First off I spent a while trying to get the composition and cropping right for the size of the portrait. A close crop with Laura's face quite large would have worked well but we opted for a lovely classic composition to show off as much of her hair as possible. I sketched the main features using a 2B pencil on acid-free cartridge paper. Once I was happy I had a likeness I started to lightly shade her skin tones with an HB pencil to create soft, light, even shadows. Using a softer lead would have left too much of a granular texture and I want her skin to look smooth so I use blending stubs as well as different pencil leads. With the skin tones finely blended I took an 8B to establish the darkest areas of the portrait which included her eyes and the shadows in her hair. A strong shadow on the left side of the drawing enhances the shape of Laura's face while the shadow on the right remains soft. Next I used a sharpened HB to sweep in the lines that make up Laura's hair. There is no short cut here - each hair has to be drawn including the ones that escape out to the sides! Finally a little darkening of the shadows and a signature completes the portrait.

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!!