Rare portrait in progress 5 - Five colors

I wanted to share this close-up since you don’t usually get to see the pencil strokes in small online pics of the whole artwork.

This is a “Grisaille” portrait: a single-color artwork on a mid-tone background. Grisailles can be any color but for Rare’s portrait I chose rust-brown on tan paper, since she is a red Doberman. Technically I should have used just two pencils: brown and white. But I actually used 5 pencils. Rust-brown and a darker chocolate-brown for the majority of Rare and the harness, with a very dark chocolate-brown for the darkest shadows like the front of her chest. The highlights are beige (a very pale “rust”), not white. White was used only for the highlights on the harness hardware and collar.

Here are the 5 pencil colors I used. Fabriano Tiziano is the name of the art paper.

Grisaille (pronounced greez-EYE) is my most affordable portrait type.

You can learn more about my grisaille portraits HERE.

🎨 Portrait of Rare for Katie G.

17 x 21 inches