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I love doing white fur on gray paper. It's so easy. The gray paper creates the shadows between hairs or clumps of hairs. Here's a closer view that shows what I'm talking about. White and two shades of light-grey pencils were used (French Grey 10% and French Grey 20%) to make the strokes that created the white parts of Bonnie's coat. The grey paper color was left showing to make the shadows between the hairs. I only added some darker grey in a few places like the center of Bon

Working on Bonnie, the second cat on the stairs. This photo was taken in the studio while I was working on Bonnie's eyes. The photo second from the left on the monitor is my main reference for her face. But I’m using the others to see eye color, and double-check the shape of her eyes. They have better color and better detail than the main photo. The more reference photos a portrait artist has of their subject, the better. One photo can be deceptive because of the lighting or

Remember Penny, the Doberman who won Westminster? In January Greg and Theresa Chan commissioned me to create 3 portraits of Penny to be given as surprise gifts to "Team Penny". In February Penny won Westminster, and the commission became even more special. A commemoration of a historic achievement. It took 3 months to create the portraits. They were kept secret until they were gifted to the recipients. Now I can finally share them! I’ll share the creation of these portraits o

The upper cat, Grace, is finished. When Tammy asked me to create a portrait of her cats (two still living, one at the Bridge), a photo of two of her cats waiting for her on the stairs gave Tammy the great idea of showing the 3 cats on stairs. All three cats are black and white. The staircase was done with watercolor, an “underpainting” on the grey paper. The cats are colored pencil, and the details of the staircase and stair cushions will be colored pencil. Colored pencils ar

Working on the upper cat, Grace, in Tammy's portrait of “Three Cats on Stairs”. I had to make a composite of her head from different photos. When I questioned Tammy about the expression on Grace’s face and the position of her ears, Tammy wrote, “Very nice. Grace actually stands her eyes straight up when she is on alert, so that's good.” I thought that was an interesting way to describe it. Grace is definitely standing her eyes straight up! I saw that in her other photos too.