Cooper portrait in progress 1 - First steps

This portrait was commissioned by Rina Carrillo after the loss of Cooper, her partner Brandon Hedrick’s dog. When Rina contacted me she wrote:

“Honestly, we thought we had months left with him too. It just came so suddenly :( He was a unicorn of a dog, and thankfully has left an impression on us all that we will never forget.”

1

A scan of my outline drawing, done with colored pencils on “Flannel Grey” paper. This initial line drawing is the “skeleton” of the artwork, I’ll then add all the richness of colors and light and shadow as “flesh” over those bones.

You can see the crop marks for the overall size of the portrait. The outer marks are the 11 x 14 size it will be trimmed to. The inner rectangle is what will be showing when it’s framed. (The lip of most frames covers about 1/4 inch.) I’ll erase those at the end. The inner rectangle helps me know where to fade out Cooper’s chest at the bottom, and where to put my signature, so the frame doesn’t cover it.

2

My studio set up this morning to start work on Cooper. Vizslas are a beautiful solid copper color. The first thing I did was create a group of photos that shows Cooper’s coat color the best, and study those to pick out the pencil colors I’ll be using. That’s what you see on the monitor. I’ll leave those on the monitor while I work for reference, and also open our main reference pic which I’ll display larger, about the size of the actual drawing.

3

Ear in progress. The pencils I’m using the most are on the sheet of paper above where I’m working so I can grab them quickly. A few others I’m using are near the pencil sharpener, that helps keep my main colors simple so I can grab the right one quickly. The swatches on the scrap of Flannel Grey Canson paper are some I created for previous portraits on this paper color. I’m using a lot of those for Cooper but not the greys and yellows near the bottom of the swatches. 

4

Cooper’s ear completed. This is where I quit for the day. In this shot you can see the coat-color reference pics on the monitor, and the main reference photo. 

Cooper is my first Vizsla and when I studied these photos to get a feel for what color that Vizsla coat is exactly, “Mineral Orange” (a muted orange) and “Burnt Ochre” (rust-brown) were my first impression. Then I began to see chocolate brown, dark brown, cream, beige, mauve, grey, pink, yellow ochre (gold), and “Light Umber” (mushroom brown) also. 

5

The artwork scanned after I finished today’s work in the studio. I think I captured Cooper's soft ear. I can just feel how velvety soft his ear is. 

🎨 Prismacolor pencil on “Flannel Grey” Canson Mi-Teintes paper, 11 x 14 inches.

“Cooper”

Commissioned by Rina Carrillo as a birthday gift for her partner Brandon Hedrick.