I love Newfoundlands, they are a definite amongst my favourite breeds.  Sadly missed, this is a portrait of Bruce the Newfoundland whose lovely character I hope I’ve captured.

The finished painting, pastel on velour 16″x16″
The photo reference for this painting wasn’t great
The resolution was quite low but I did like the light
that was hitting him from one side so I’m creating
a plain background with a gradient in colour to
give some idea of directional light.

 

 

Several layers later the background is well blended underneath
but I’ve left a bit of texture to the top layers.

 

Using a black pastel I’m marking in the fur direction
in the darkest areas.  There are lots of shades reflected
on a black dog but I like to start with something tonal
in black.

 

Most of the Unison pastels I’m using are from my new
set of 18 which Unison asked me to compile as their
brand new ‘Animal’ set.  I’ve run out of a few of them
and waiting on a new box myself so I did substitute a
couple.  But this portrait would be entirely possible
from that set of 18 so it was a good test run for the set!

 

I also make use of some pastel pencils, especially
the dark colours, for smallest detail around the eyes
mostly.  I’ve left most of the fur quite loose so far,
and maybe that’s just a nice by product of working
from a blurry photograph, but I quite like it.  I think
with the scale of this I can afford not to get too
fiddly on his fur.

 

Saving the brightest highlight for his nose and
generally down the right side of him.

 

 

Although there is no bib in the photo I’m working
from, I had a picture of him in a bib in another photo.
It was his most natural look apparently so it’s only
right he has it in the portrait.

 

Love the Dark 14 and Grey 8 Unisons which I’ve
used as shadow shades throughout this.

 

Nice under layer of red before building up the tones
in the cravat/bib/bandanna!  I think he looks
quite handsome in it…

 

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