Guide to help you choose your ideal medium for your pet portrait
View the examples of colour and graphite pet pencil portraits below. See the close up detail of each to see how your portrait could look. If you still would like further information please view more in the galleries.
Pastels come in either stick, pencil or now tub form. Using these different types can create completely different versions of the same subject. I use soft pastel sticks for the background which enables me to blend soft diffused colours. and then I use pastel pencils for the finer areas.
I use pastel pencils for the finer areas. The pencils are especially good for creating the look of indiviual strands of fur.
Pastels allow lots of blending but also the colours are especially vibrant helping make eyes look like deep pools of liquid.
My graphite portraits are every bit as detailed as my pastel ones. I build up many layers of pencil to add depth and create shadows. They can take as long as a colour portrait to complete.
Graphite pencils can be used to create all visual effects, you can see the shorter strokes of pencil on top of the head but also the longer ones underneath the neck to give the impression of longer fur
As with pastels, using many fine layers can be used for the eye details. Here the highlights were simply left white and some areas of the eye took many many layers to make the edges as black as possible, giving the eye a rounded appearance