Shawn's portrait progressing

Shawn - in progress
acrylic on canvas,  9" x 12"
© Xan Blackburn

As I mentioned before, Shawn's portrait has been a long time coming.  I made good progress on him today, and will probably work a bit more this afternoon.  

I started this one by covering the entire canvas with a pale coat of cobalt, to get a unifying tone, and to contrast the warmer colors in the dog and sand.  After that had time to dry, I transferred the drawing to the re-dampened canvas, using conte crayon, cleaned up the dusty mess that always makes, and sealed it in by going over the drawing strategically with Payne's Gray diluted with acrylic polymer (clear glaze; I use it a LOT).  I went ahead and started to lay in some of the darker tones, bringing us to this point

I continued building up the darker tones, but couldn't resist playing up some of the lighter areas as well.  The starting tone of the blue background made me crave those lighter areas for dimension.

I'm pretty sure I had also washed in a very dilute cad yellow in the ocean at this point, as well.

That brought us to this point. 

Shawn - in progress
acrylic on canvas,  9" x 12"
© Xan Blackburn

 

I'm already re-thinking all that blue!  It's going to be a real bother to overcome in the sandy area.  Maybe.  Or maybe it will do just what I want.  Remains to be seen.

So, on we go.  

Brindles!  Argh!  They're so beautiful, and Shawn has this gorgeous tiger-red coat under his very busy brindling, but they always make me wish I was more impressionistic than I am, and I could just toss some random stripes in and call it good.  So, since I'm not that impressionistic, out comes the tiny brush, and in with the brindling.  

Shawn - in progress
acrylic on canvas,  9" x 12"
© Xan Blackburn

Working on that for awhile (longer than you might think) brought me to this point.  Note the tiny brush.

So, back to work ....

Shawn - in progress
acrylic on canvas,  9" x 12"
© Xan Blackburn

Now I'm really ready to start seeing some color in here.

I started with some very pale glazes of raw sienna, to begin to build up that gorgeous red coat.

Shawn - in progress
acrylic on canvas,  9" x 12"
© Xan Blackburn

That got me to the point you see here on the right.  Already, you can see him popping out and taking some form, just from that one watery glaze of the sienna!

Now to explore some of the pink showing on his underside, and into his ears.  Reds can get away from you, so choosing a cad red medium, and thinning it way down with glazing, I washed in those first pinks.  Always shocking!  I toned them warmer with more of the raw sienna in places, dabbed around with more red in the eyes, throat, a hint at the muzzle, around the toes, deepening that pink shadow from his chest down his midline.  

At that point, I really wanted to start warming up the sand.  Not a lot: this isn't a full sun day, rather more of a hazy east coast day at the shore, maybe the sand is damp, the shadows are indistinct, reflections and highlights are muted.  Even the ocean doesn't reflect a lot of sunlight today.  I laid in a first glaze of raw umber on the sand.  I added a bit of a deep turquoise glaze to the ocean, and it's too green now.  I'll have to work on that.  I also worked on all the colors already on my pallet, from Payne's gray to white, all over.  

It's coming along.  I think I'll probably finish it tomorrow.  What do you think, so far?  And, as always, sorry for the cr@ppy photos!  This last one is a scan, trimmed a tiny bit by my scanner, which isn't quite big enough.

Shawn - in progress
acrylic on canvas,  9" x 12"
© Xan Blackburn