Raven portrait in progress 8 - Raven has a wrinkly tongue!

Every dog is an individual, even down to the characteristics of their tongue. I noticed in Raven’s reference photo that his tongue has more wrinkles than other dog-tongues I’ve portrayed. I double-checked that by looking at Raven’s other ref photos. (Below) In a recent post I explained why it’s important to have multiple ref photos for a portrait.

Normally I would have edited out those vertical grooves near the tip of the tongue. But in Raven’s portrait, that is part of what makes him Raven. 

ARTISTS: But you want to be careful. You wouldn’t want to make those grooves too prominent. They help capture Raven’s individuality. But they shouldn’t jump out at you.

There are a lot of unexpected colors in a dog’s tongue. It always involves layering and blending of multiple colors of pencils. Purples, lavenders, pinks from palest baby-pink to chestnut brown, mauves, peach, orange-red, and even some dark mushroom grey and chocolate-brown.  

As you can see, the values (lightness/darkness) of Raven’s tongue are very similar to the value of the “Sand” Canson paper. (Similar value, but different color.) I used the value of the Canson paper as I was working to judge my values in the tongue. That helped me avoid making the tongue too pale or too dark. 

When I put in his white ruff around it, that will make the tongue look darker by comparison.

The whole portrait as it looks now.

🎨 Prismacolor pencil on “Sand” Canson Mi-Teintes paper, 16 x 20 inches.

“Raven”

Conant’s Raven Nevermore CDX RN

Commissioned by Cathy Nearman.