This is my latest work, I enjoy portraying animals especially dogs and consider myself a dog portrait artist above all else.
This is my Springer Spaniel Zac, as previously featured in other dog paintings asleep in his chair. He is a large springer and sometimes a bit clumsy, he does not like to have his photograph taken at all and I managed to catch him whilst he was gazing out into the distance. This portrait is to be displayed in one of the local exhibitions I am taking part in over the next couple of months and will be available for sale in the near future.
The portrait is to be A3 sized so watch this space for future updates.
Work begins, I have not drawn any outline on this dog portrait but have highlighted the fine light fur around Zac as a guide. Unusually I have started work on the left hand side of the portrait, I'm not sure why, it just worked out that way! No true colours will be reflected yet as it takes layers of pencils to achieve the depth required. I expect to go over any colour pencil portrait at least three times, once with the base colours (sometimes this is in layers as well), then with highlights and lowlights. Luckily colour pencils are a bit like oil paints in that you can add layers for the desired finish so dog paintings look more realistic, however after a few layers the pencil starts to flake so there is a balance. After the layers are down, I then burnish as well. Colour pencil portraits can take as long to produce as an oil painting just without the drying time. This has taken about 3 hours so far.
Work is progressing at a good rate now, I am working down Zac's body, I have shaded quite a lot of the lowlights in already and he really is starting to look realistic. I am using new pencils for this dog portrait, these are much drier than my usual type but I seem to be getting along well with them. You can see a difference in the colours of this update and the one above, this is the difference between taking a photographic image with a flash inside and taking an image outside in daylight.
So far I have spent about 8 hours on this portrait.
At about 11 hours in, most of Zac's chest has now been completed, the 'white' chest area consists of chinese white, champagne, flesh pink, cadium, copper beech, dove grey and mars black coloured pencils. Using this many colours produces depth and a 3d effect which is much more realistic than just using white and either grey or black for shading. I have also worked a large area of grass, this again consisted of 3 greens, a yellow, blue, black and cadium. I normally rarely use black in any portraits but it has given added effect on this portrait and has shown a contrast between the white of Zac's foreleg and the grass. At this point in time I'm not too sure whether or not I need to increase the grassy area of just leave it as a surround. I will be able to decide once everything else is on place to give a more balanced view.
At long last Zac is completed and my work as an animal portrait artist is complete for the time being. After work was finished on the ear I decided against adding further detail to the grass as I felt this would distract from the portrait. Zac will be displayed with the WGAS and will then be offered for sale.
Pencil Portraits from Photos 
