My in-laws rescued an adorable, fishy-breathed, 5lb Yorkie named Jeter several years ago. Every time we see him, I am surprised all over again at just how small he is. Riesling looks huge next to him! I already had several photos of him, so he was easily my next subject for my second pet portrait.

Surprise, mom!

I wanted to try a full-body portrait, so while this wasn’t our best photo of Jeter, I needed to learn to work with the whole dog and background.

I started out by making a vine charcoal sketch of Jeter and this is where I can mess up and redraw any lines. (Like his front leg!) Once I fill in the general color, I’m more or less locked into my drawing. I typically like to start out with the mid-values and work my way lighter and darker from there.

Once I was happy with how he was progressing, I added in the background.

In this case, he is standing in the grassy backyard, so I blocked in the value of the grass and plan to add more detail to the foreground later on. Once the background is added, I can start to evaluate the color values in the piece and further emphasize Jeter’s highlights and shadows.