Wednesday, Aug 26
The painting will be created on a warm dark brown background. Here is the layout sketched on it. (This picture has been exaggerated to show you the drawing, which is actually very faint lines.)
I lowered the perspective of the scene so that you are looking into it as though you are crouched down at Rain's eye level. |
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Friday, Aug 28
I begin laying in the dark areas of the background with acrylic washes. The colors in the painting so far are black and purple.
Yellow pencil marks indicate the sunny areas of lawn. |
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Monday, Aug 31
Transparent dark green has been added for the bushes and grass shadows, and light greens on the sunlit lawn. The layering of dark green over the black and purple makes a very rich, dark color for the bushes.
Everything so far is an "underpainting". The details will be drawn on top of those colors with colored pencil (Prismacolor pencils). I specialize in colored pencil, their sharp points make great "hair" in dog portraits. |
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Wednesday, Sept 2
The scene is starting to come alive with the colored pencil in the background.
The farther out I get from Rain, the more loose and sketchy I make my pencil strokes. Rain will be done in very tight detail.
Below is a close-up of the pencilwork.... |
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Thursday, Sept 3
Today I started on Rain's head. The glow of backlighting around her is critical to make her stand out from the dark background. Her white markings are actually done in grey because they are in shadow, that makes the white sunlit hairs very bright by comparison.
This is how Rain looked when I broke for lunch. Below is her head at the end of the day. |
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Friday, Sept 4
Rain's forequarters finished...
She is really starting to emerge from the background. |
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Monday, Sept 7
Rain's body is finished and I put in the flowerbeds behind her. The flowers to the left of her shoulder make Rain's black side stand out from the dark background. (See close-up below). |
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Tuesday, Sept 8
The grass and grass shadows are completed. Pencil does grass blades really well (below). |
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Thursday, Sept 10
"Rain" is finished!
 to see a large version.
Below is Sheila's response when she saw the painting.
For more info about Roeckl portraits,
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What a stunning portrait of my most beautiful and loved girl!! The back lighting is lovely; I am so glad you suggested doing the portrait this way. And how did you know that purple flowers are my favorite color? Best of all you have captured her spirit. I can look into her eyes in the painting and feel that I am looking at her. It brings tears to my eyes. It is a beautiful portrait, just beautiful. And that doesn't begin to describe how it makes me feel.
Sheila Conant |
