Scout portrait in progress 15 - The finishing touches...

When I was adding the colored pencil to connect these two scenes, fading the straw of the barn-hunt scene into the grass of the Frisbee scene, it was necessary to see the entire composition as a whole. So when I finished adding the straw in a way that felt like it looked good, to check whether it needed anything more I taped the artwork up on the wall of my studio, and stood back to see what the artwork would look like as the client would view it in their home. 

I saw then that I needed to bring the green of the grass down a little further into the straw color. I do that with the artwork taped up (normally I work on a flat table), putting in a few strokes, stepping back to see it from about 8 feet away, stepping forward to add a few more where they are needed, and I keep that up until I have it looking just right. I wouldn't be able to get the big picture leaning over the artwork looking at it from 18 inches away.

The neck and shoulders of Scout’s large head-study are still left to do. When that’s finished I’ll repeat this process of taping the artwork up on the wall and stepping back to see if it needs any final touches. That’s the very last step in creating the portrait. When I step toward it for the last time and take it down from the wall, it’s finished. 

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I’m now working on the final part of Scout's portrait. 

Once again you can see how I make light-colored strokes for the hairs with white and light-grey pencils, and let the paper color create the shadows between hairs. In most of this triple portrait, I used the virgin grey paper color to do that. For this head study I deliberately wanted the underpainting (the paper color tinted by transparent green and gold watercolors) to show through, so Scout’s coat looks like it’s fading down into the barn-hunt and Frisbee scenes rather than just into grey paper.  

Triple portrait of “Scout”, in progress.

Commissioned by Annette Riehle.

🎨 Prismacolor pencil and acrylic wash on “Flannel Grey” Canson Mi-Teintes paper

20 x 26 inches.

From reference photos by Faith Lyman, Jackie Singer, and Donna Childs.