A very special commission for a couple and their beloved Archie.  I got to meet and photograph Archie who was a real gent!  I love his thoughtful wee expression and as the piece was to be kept quite small I gave him quite a plain background.
The finished piece, pastel on velour 12″x12″
My line drawing transferred onto the yellow
velour.  I’m using yellow to keep the tone nice
and warm.  It has become my favourite tone for painting
white dogs.

 

First layer is a Brown Earth shade from Unison.
This will be nice and warm also shining through
the top layers of the background.

 

I’ve toned that down and left a good dark shadow
behind Archie.  This made use of DK14 one of my favourites!

 

Using a Blue Violet shade to mark in the fur direction.

 

My favourite colour is purple, big surprise.  A lot
of my palette when I go to paint something focuses
heavily on yellow vs purple.  Does your favourite
colour affect your colour choices often??

 

Making use of the Light range from Unison.  The top
row of my Animal Selection Unison set has many
off-white shades.  See more about this set here
http://www.emmacolbertart.com/index.php/2014/10/16/unison-pastels-animal-se/

 

Working down the body working in the darkest
areas first.

 

Hope you enjoyed the progress.  I don’t always have time to put lengthly explanations under each picture but I hope that by taking the progress shots it is helpful in itself.  Please subscribe for more or take a look back through my earlier posts 🙂