Blog

Well, it's been nearly a month and while I would have liked to have Balin's portrait completed before Christmas that has become evident that it won't be done by then. Along with working on this painting, I had a few others to complete and get ready for a show at our local gallery. Then there's always the extra activities that the holiday season brings. Plus I've been somewhat distracted by a number of photo opportunities of owls and other birds of prey that will eventually make their way into future paintings. Despite all that I have made progress and I am very happy with how things are going.

I started my painting by laying out the two largest images as a road map of sorts, then began to block in the sky and some of the water in the foreground. When I was satisfied with how that looked I transferred the ducks and began working on those. I found myself spending more time here than I wanted to mainly because my paints were drying so fast I couldn't blend them. I work in acrylic and live in a relatively dry environment so the indoor air was just sucking the moisture right out of them. I finally had to resort to using some retarder and a Sta-wet palette to try to give myself a little working time. I also made sure to complete the eyes on the main head study as I needed to have some life in the painting. On a portrait I almost always complete the eyes first because if I don't get that right, if I don't capture that spark and spirit I might as well pitch it and start over. With those two areas out of the way I moved on.

Next I blocked in the two dog poses laying in my lights and darks and building a foundation for the colors to come. I had to make some adjustments to the dog with the bird as my reference photo had the light coming from the right side. If I wanted it to be correct with the larger pose and not look like I had two suns in my painting I had to compensate for that. It will be challenging when I get to that part of the painting to make my brain remember to switch the light source. Blocking it in ahead of time should help me accomplish that.

At this point I have started to put the detail into the larger pose. It's slow going adding all the fine detail of the hair pattern in the face. I work back and forth between lights and darks building the values and textures. Most of this is done with a #1 or #2 round brush. Lots of tiny strokes here. I have to take frequent breaks to give my eyes and hand a rest as I tend to get pretty focused and intense in this area. Getting the expression and detail right here is critical to capturing the personality of this dog. As I move on to the body hair I can loosen up just a bit and use some bigger brushes which should also help the painting process to move a little faster.

Here's a detail of the head showing the fine strokes around the eyes and nose. I've just started adding texture to the right ear and have quite a way to go with that yet. Overall I'm liking how it's coming together. I am especially happy that I decided to cut loose and do this for myself. As I've worked on this I have felt my creativity returning and the funk that I was in starting to leave. Ideas for future paintings have been popping into my head and I have been making sketches and gathering reference for them. But first I have to finish this one!