My first challenge was to make a definite distinction between the hair on her face and her long ears. The other feature I wanted to be sure to capture was her breed-specific underbite.

After finishing her collar and tags, I felt the portrait was almost done. After much deliberation I decided that I liked it better with a plain background. I added some more detail to her left ear and added some shading under her chin on the collar.

The final product!

When I was nine, my parents finally got us the dog my siblings and I had been begging for, a little Lhasa Apso named Mai Tai. She was super overprotective and barked at ANYthing traveling past our house, but we loved her fiercely. She made it to the ripe old age of 14. I still remember coming home from college that summer with a tremendous sense of loss, something important was missing from home.

I found this photo of her the other day and scanned it in to enlarge the facial details. I wanted to try this next painting on a brown background to see if I liked the plain tinted paper behind the portrait.

Blocking in the nose and eyes were fairly straightforward, but I still had a lot of work to do on her ears.

This was my stopping point for the first day. I extended her right ear and worked a little more on the coloring around her face.

Once I decided to get serious about dog portraits, I ordered 100 business cards to help me spread the word. I used OvernightPrints.com because I had a coupon and they don’t put their logo anywhere on the materials you order from them. The shipping was a bit extreme, but the print job was “technically” free, so it evened out.

I am very pleased with both the quality of the printing job and the weight and feel of the cards themselves.

I am very happy with how this turned out. There are a ton of little detailed hairs in this piece and I think I captured his serene expression well.

Terriers have such a wonderful energy about them, this little guy included. He belongs to friends of ours who live in Seattle and we love hanging out with him, his sister Brigao, and his (bigger) little brother Sebastian when we visit.

Haus is not very furry—he’s got a wiry coat—so it’s even more important to get the proportions of his head, ears, and muzzle correct in my initial drawing.

Once the general colors were added, I went back and added in some white whiskers over his face for texture… he’s an older guy, so he’s going a bit gray. I also widened his left ear and sharpened the detail on his eyes.

At this point, I can see that my next step is to shorten the dark whiskers on his muzzle, further define the area near his nose and work on the fur under his chin.

When I first started painting with chalk pastels about eight years ago, I used the cheapest pastels available at Michael’s. You know, the kind that come in all primary colors in a black plastic tray? They worked for a while, but the color selection was very limited and I wasn’t able to achieve the correct blends on my own. Then, people were asking me what brand I used when I brought in paintings for critique to the PSNC meetings and I was, frankly, too embarrassed to say.

Finally, two years ago, I acquiesced and purchased a 30 piece Rembrandt pastel set. Thanks to a 50% coupon and a gift card from my mom-in-law, it only cost me around $15.

Talk about a difference! Not only was the quality of the pigment light years better, but I feel like my paintings improved tremendously. I probably don’t own as many pastels as most of my fellow artists, but for every project I am slowly building my collection. I currently work with 53 colors of Rembrandt pastels and 3 Sennelier pastels that I got for free, 56 colors in all.

Once the background was added, I continued to work on Jeter to give him more definition, concentrating mostly on his head. Obviously the face is the most important focal point in any portrait, so I needed to make sure there was enough of a likeness there.

He’s definitely looking more furry!

I continued giving him more tufts of fur on his body and legs and added more detail around the mouth.

At this stage, I needed to figure out how detailed I wanted the grass to be. I decided to go with sharp strokes in the foreground by swiping upwards with three different shades of green. I went back into the foreground grass with some medium brown to root his feet better, as well.

I asked Eric’s opinion and he thought Jeter still looked too “soft” and wanted slightly more detail in the grassy background, so I added more strokes to the background and put in several wisps on hair on his back and legs.

The final product…

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.

I am so thrilled about how this turned out that I am donating a custom portrait of the winning bidder’s schnauzer to the NCSR for SchnOctoberFest 2007 in early October.

In between tennis and football this weekend, I spent some time working on pup’s portrait. Like a good little model, she is letting me inspect the coloring around her eyes.

This piece is mostly done. I moved her mouth up a little bit and rounded out the right eye. I also added some lights and darks into her eyebrows and beard to make them more three-dimensional.

I want to add a little more texture to her forehead and the right ear. Final painting will be up tomorrow!