Casey portrait in progress 2 - Ears like butterfly wings

Working on the portrait of “Casey”, a Papillon.

“Papillon” is French for “butterfly”.

The ears resemble butterfly wings.

1

This is a portion of the Photoshop layout I created, a composite of Doug’s photos, when Doug and I were working together to create a layout he would like. Casey’s portrait will have 5 butterflies. I deliberately placed a butterfly directly above his head that exactly mimics the shape of Casey’s ears.

I made a black line outline of the butterfly in the sky, and superimposed the same outline, larger, on Casey’s head to guide me when I work on the portrait. Actually, that’s not quite true: I created the outline on Casey’s head first, tracing the outer edges of his ears, and then turned that into the butterfly shape in the sky. I can switch the butterfly-outline over Casey’s face on and off while I’m working. That helps me to capture his ears and ear-fringe symmetrically as I’m portraying his head from the reference photo.

2

I chose to work on white paper. First I drew the outlines of Casey and the entire scene with colored pencils, in similar colors to what I'll be using in that area.

Casey’s portrait in progress with colored pencils. On the right side of his face you can see the butterfly outline which I’ve penciled in coming downward from the outer edge of the ear and his cheek. I’ve already covered the identical outline on the left side. Those pencil outlines help me keep track of the butterfly shape as I’m adding a variety of yellow ochres, oranges, and rust-brown pencil strokes to create the ear fringe. I’m modifying the ear fringe somewhat from the photo to exaggerate the butterfly-wing shape. Not to change the shape of Casey’s actual ears - it’s important to portray them accurately - but to add some darker strokes in the hair in the places that make the butterfly-wing edges obvious.

Casey is a Top 25 show Papillon and the butterfly ear shape is an important feature of the breed.

🎨 Prismacolor pencil on white Canson Mi-Teintes paper, 11 x 14 inches.

“Casey” (GCHS Ch. Marrics Just In Case With Grand Oaks).

Commissioned by Doug Eicher.

From reference photos taken by Doug and a show photo by Lexi D Photography (Alexandria Darienzo).