Cooper portrait in progress 5 - Inventing a unique throat

Some of the challenges a portrait artist has to solve: “hair whirls” on Cooper’s chest, and seeing what’s under a bow-tie.

1

When I began working with Rina and Brandon, I sent several layouts for Cooper’s head study portrait (made with Photoshop) from 3 favorite photos. This was the one they chose. Brandon asked that I remove the bow-tie, and make the fade-out at the bottom of the neck lower to include Cooper’s unique “hair whirls”.

 I’ll tell you about the hair whirls in my next post. But first I had to figure out how to portray what is hidden by the bow-tie and make it look like Cooper. He has distinctive hair patterns.

Even the features of a throat differ from one dog to another. 

2

Cooper’s head is finished and I’m starting down his neck. The parts of his neck and throat that I can see around the bow-tie have been added. I’ve started estimating the folds of skin under his throat. But how do I know what they look like under the bow-tie? The skin folds and hair patterns on Cooper’s neck are unique to him. 

3

This is the “neck reference” I created, choosing photos from among the 97 pics Brandon had sent, which showed his neck at a similar angle to the portrait. None was exactly the same angle. There is not “one” photo I can look at to see his throat and hair pattern for the portrait, I will have to look at this whole row and extrapolate the forms of Cooper’s throat, and the distinctive hair pattern, to how those would look on his portrait. 

To create this reference image I had to adjust the color and lighting on each photo so they all look similar. Some were in bright light, some in shadow, under-exposed or over-exposed, and that beautiful copper coat color was not the same in each. I also resized them so his neck and chest would be the same size. That makes it easier for me to see at a glance where the light and shadows fall when at different angles. That’s hard enough to make the mental calculation without having to look at photos where one is twice the size of another. 

(How cute is that puppy pic on the left???!)

4

Next I bring my “neck refs” image up on the monitor, above my reference photo of Cooper in the bow-tie. With constant movement of my eyes between those upper images and the lower reference photo, I’m able to understand the contours and hair patterns on his neck for the portrait as I’m working on Cooper’s neck. 

5

This is where I stopped for the day. 

Brandon had told me that it was important to him that I capture the interesting and distinctive “hair whirls” on Cooper’s chest. There is a very obvious white hair whirl at the front of his chest. But by the time I finished today’s work I also had a good appreciation for all the interesting hair directions on his neck and shoulders that is unique to Cooper. 

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

Portrait of Cooper

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