Portrait Marathon: Hubble is DONE

Yeay!
This little guy was a blast to paint.  What a fun, funny, sincere, whimsical, adoring and adorable guy!  Hubble and his human, Faith, were obviously lucky to have found each other.

(For those of you just joining us, I'm in the midst of my Spring Portrait Marathon, explained here.)

This is the phase I didn't want to share yesterday.  Looking at it now, especially at such a small size, it doesn't look so bad, does it?  Well, maybe I was too close to it at the time.

I'm trying to figure out how to get the whole series in here in a row, but *frown* it gets all scrambled up, for some reason.  Ah well.  It's all here on the blog anyway.

Enjoy!

Now, on to Maureen's Hailey, a smiley black greyhound......

Portrait Marathon: Hubble has growing pains!

Heya all.  Sorry for the delay.  I had to fiddle some more with a recent project, run some errands, do some accounting and finish my taxes yesterday.

Here's where Hubble got to at some point yesterday afternoon.  I did get some more work done on the portrait, but I'm going to wait a little longer to show you where we're at now.  Those of you who've been reading my blog for awhile might remember me talking about how many paintings go through an ugly phase where I nearly despair, and threaten them with starting over from scratch.  Hubble is there, my friends.  :P

One of my errands was to get some more opaque white paint with which to highlight Hubbles wispy cotton top.  After a few tests, I am relieved to say that will work!  I wish I'd gotten another really fine brush while at the art store, as mine are getting pretty frayed.  Hm.

Bailey's portrait went in the mail yesterday.  I hope it gives her owners much happiness, and thanks again for helping me help The Grey Muzzle Organization!

I have to say, I've REALLY been enjoying my little blank books.  I've got them all over the house, one in my car, one in my purse ....  They give my random ideas someplace to stay until I need them (since leaving that up to my brain alone is a lost cause!), and dignify my shopping lists with a feeling of permanence (though, with a confident touch, the pages can be cleanly removed).  I can just see them all lined up on a shelf after many years.  I'm gone now, and my heirs (of whom there are none, unless my pets survive me) must decide what to keep, and what to recycle.  A row of small books appears, filled with the ephemera of my life, a wash of consumer color to fill in the outlines of my character.  My heirs consider their options, and have them installed in the Xan Blackburn Memorial Library, in a display case.

Heh.  Well, you know.  It could happen!

Portrait Marathon: Hubble begins

Hubble is starting to look back at me, here.  Actually, he appears to be staring rather hard with his right eye (on our left)!  That will have to be adjusted.

I started this one a little differently. I laid down some color washes first; the background (and sides of the deep canvas), and the lilac and deep blue skin tones.  I usually start with establishing the tones - the darks and lights - in detail.  Like a black and white painting over which I then glaze in color and details.  I'm actually unclear, yet, how I'm going to get his frilly white hairs in, especially in the background, which is going to be very dark.  That will be a challenge!  Maybe I'll try a resist ... or not.  Hmmm. Better figure it out pretty soon.

While I was painting, thinking ahead, wondering and worrying about those white tendrils to come, my husband walked in and exclaimed, "Cute!  Very nice!"  That made me feel a little better!  I stepped back and sure enough, there's his little face starting to look right!  Good.  So I figured we were ready to go public with the first stages here.

Now, what to do about those white hairs and the background????
Some of you might be thinking, "What's so hard?  Just paint them back in, in white, right?"  Well, in theory, but this white acrylic paint is not all that opaque, so painting over a dark background may not really do justice to this powder puff.  May have to experiment a bit.  I have one idea that might work ....

Portrait Marathon: Hubble

Lookit this little guy!!  What a cutie, huh?

Hubble, I'm told, was always a gentleman, a true velcro dog, and the very apple of his human mom's eye.  He came to his final family with "age unknown", zipped to their hearts, and stayed there, even after his passing a couple years later.  I hope I can do him justice!

I've played with the background here, and enhanced Hubble's natural coloring a bit (mostly so I can see it when I print it out for reference!)  Faith asked me to make the background colors autumnal to reflect the season he passed in.  I tried lighter colors, but he's so light, it didn't give enough contrast, so darker and darker it went 'til we end up with these wine-dark maple leaf colors.  I like how they complement his own almost purpley skin tones, and the warmer rusty tones around his eyes and ears.

Oh man.  I can see I'm in danger of falling in love with this elfin face, with his adoring gaze (little tongue showing and all!)