Daisy portrait finished!

Daisy is a two year old rescue from our local Humane Society. It’s unusual for me to work for a local client and be able to meet and interact with the dog in person. Daisy is very sweet and affectionate. When I sat on the couch she got up next to me and wanted to hold my hand with her paw. But she was on the front porch doing her job, protecting her family from strangers, when I first arrived. Just as you would expect from a mixed-breed who has Malinois in her heritage. Good girl, Daisy! 

This is the second portrait I’ve created for Kathy and Mark. The first portrait was a head study portrait of the Hutchisons' three Cavalier King Charles spaniels and one cat, in 2019. 

Info for Artists:

When working on colored paper, all of the edges of the figure have to be either lighter or darker than the paper color. If you want it to stand out clearly from the paper.

Notice that all edges of Daisy's ears, head, and neck are either a lighter or darker value than the paper color. If that wasn't the case in my reference photo, I make it so in the artwork: I will either lighten or darken an edge if I need to, to make it stand out.

Daisy is on “Steel Blue”, one of Canson’s newest paper colors. When you work on blue paper, you have to compensate with red or orange tones in a figure, because paper color changes the color of pencil you put over it.

Daisy’s coat is kind of a caramel color: something between yellow ochre and rust, with a sprinkling of other color hairs in it. I was able to meet her in person and that really helped to observe her exact coat color in real life. It’s not exactly like any one Prismacolor pencil color. I needed a variety of pencil colors to capture her coat color accurately. I shared the pencil colors I used in this post.

🎨 Prismacolor pencil on “Steel Blue” Canson Mi-Teintes paper, 12 x 16 inches.

Commissioned by Mark H. as a gift for his wife Kathy.