Casey portrait in progress 1 - Layout decisions
I’m starting a portrait of “Casey”, a Top 25 Papillon. “Papillon” is French for “butterfly”. Their ears resemble butterfly wings. Doug asked me to include colorful butterflies in the portrait. This post describes how I designed the layout and background with Doug’s input.
1
Doug sent about 20 photos. This was his favorite of Casey, taken at the 2026 Papillon National.
2
These photos show Casey’s ears the best. Since I am not so familiar with the Papillon breed, I am learning a lot about them from Doug, a great teacher!
Doug wrote:
“When the dog is standing at attention the correct ear is at 45 degree angle!”
3
With Photoshop I combined the best head shot with the body from the show photo. I felt that made a more appealing portrait.
I had to size the head to what I believe is the correct head size for the body. It doesn’t always work to combine a head and body from different photos. I think this works pretty well. But it’s not my place to decide on the head for the portrait. So this was the first decision I needed from Doug. I asked, “Do you like this head on this body? I can continue working with the head in the show photo, or I can continue with this head/body combination. If you like this combination, does his head look the right size?”
4
Casey lives next to a golf course. Doug asked me to use the golf course as the setting, and sent a couple photos.
Here I’m combining the photos I have. With Photoshop I’m just cutting out the basic pieces I need and moving them around at different sizes and placements to see what makes the best composition. Casey will be standing on grass or some type of ground surface (maybe paving stones?) The black rectangle shows the 11 x 14 size Doug ordered.
I used to do all this “sketching” by hand. Moving photos around digitally is faster and easier.
5
Doug said he wanted the golf course scene, but the flowering tree in one of his photos was so pretty I had to see how it would look. (Just a rough concept for now.) That changes the format from horizontal to vertical, there was no other way to make it fit.
6
I expected Doug would prefer this landscape, and he did. I actually sent 6 versions with the flowering tree and golf course in different configurations and sizes in relation to Casey. This was one of the six. (Not the favorite.)
7
This was the winning composition for the landscape. We were both in agreement on that. The scene was fine-tuned with Doug’s input.
From the beginning Doug wanted colorful butterflies in the portrait. I thought that was a great concept for a Papillon! And they work perfectly against an all-green background scene. This is not the final configuration of butterflies. My first layout had 10 butterflies because I thought Doug wanted a LOT of colorful butterflies! He said no, that was too many. (He was right, it was.) Altogether I sent 16 different layouts (yes you read that right…16) with butterflies in different configurations, ranging from 3 to 6 butterflies in the composition.
Doug chose his favorite, and I will start laying out the portrait on Canson paper. But first I have to decide on the paper color. Hmmm. White dog….green background….blue sky. What color paper will work best?
Portrait of “Casey”
(GCHS Ch. Marrics Just In Case With Grand Oaks)
Commissioned by Doug Eicher.
Based on photos taken by Doug, and Alexandria Darienzo (Lexi D Photography)
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