Luca portrait in progress - start to finish

The past couple weeks I’ve been sharing a “Little Jewel” portrait. This is another portrait type I do, called a Grisaille (pronounced GREEZ-eye), which is a single-color portrait. There will be a little surprise in it at the end. This is the first day’s work on Luca, a black Lab.

I’ve done 8 portraits for this client. She has an eye for spotting which photos will make the most striking Grisailles and requests them. I think Grisailles are an under-appreciated portrait type. They can be very beautiful. Grisaille can be done in any single-color: shades of blue, shades of brown, etc. Traditionally Grisaille is done in black, white, and shades of grey, like this portrait.

In the studio with the client's photo on the monitor. You'll notice I’m using only 4 pencils.

Black, white, and two greys.

Here are the pencils, and the swatches that I make to guide me while I'm working - LOL. (I'm laughing because usually my swatches are on a long strip with at least a dozen pencil colors.)

I'm using two shades of grey: a light grey and a dark grey. The paper provides the mid-range grey. By applying the pencils to the artwork lightly or more heavily, I get the entire range of shades from white to black.

Here is the surprise that is in this portrait.

This is a Grisaille - a single-color portrait - black, white, and grey. That is what the client asked for. But because of the striking golden color of Luca’s eye, I suggested putting just one spot of color in the portrait…his eye.

Luca’s portrait was done with Prismacolor pencils on "felt grey" Canson Mi-Teintes paper, a beautiful fine-art paper that has little flecks and fibers in it.

This portrait is a Grisaille - a single-color portrait. Learn more about my Grisaille portraits at: https://www.kevinportraits.com/grisaille

10 x 12 inches