canine
On The Drawing Board – Abbie
When Abbie was 6 months old, through no fault of her own, she was surrendered to an animal shelter in Kuwait called K’S Path. For ca. 6 years she lived in the shelter waiting for the right family to come along and adopt her but unfortunately most adoptions are of smaller dogs, the larger dogs have a hard time finding homes and Abbie was also no longer a young dog, the odds were stacked against her.
I used to volunteer at the shelter and friends of mine came in search of the perfect canine companion for their daughter. I had seen Abbie a few days before in the garden enclosure with the trainer – sitting when asked, waiting for her treat and generally being a very well behaved dog, she is part Border 
Collie after all! The daughter actually had in mind one of the smaller dogs but thankfully it was love at first sight when she met Abbie. It was a wonderful moment when Abbie for the first time since she was surrendered as a pup, walked out the shelter door and got into their car for the journey to her new home. She jumped in the car and settled down as if it was something she did everyday of her life, dogs sense when they are with good people!
She is now a much loved member of their family, so this is a special portrait of a very lucky dog. It has been commissioned by the parents as a surprise birthday present for their daughter.
Stage 1 – the initial sketch and the start of an eye.
Continuing to establish the light and shadow.
Have finished adding the light and shade, the structure of the face is now more pronounced. Next step, moving onto the detail.
Adding more depth, working from the left-side and moving across.
Finished portrait.
On The Drawing Board – Mushkila
This is a portrait for a lady who lives in Kuwait, as an anniversary present for her husband. Really like this photograph, she has managed to capture her with such a cute but alert look, love the way her ears fold over.
Below is the initial sketch.
At the moment working on finding the contours of the face using the light and shade, no great detail yet.
Continuing to work on the contours, as Mushkila is a white dog, it is finding the fine balance between adding the shading to give depth and “saving” the white of the paper. Discovered that under Mushkila’s nose is a little black patch, if you don’t look closely it looks like her nose is going right down towards her top lip but on closer observation you can see the part underneath is a black patch. At the moment have added this in roughly, will work out how to define this a bit later when all the contours are complete.
All the basic contours now done. Have left the tag until later, we are changing to a different tag and I need to work out the angle it would be lying.
Have been working on the fine detail, small but important changes which are actually hard to capture with the camera. Need to now work on her nose now and sort out the disk on the collar.
Almost finished. Will put her on the easel over the weekend and check for anymore changes/improvements. Always like to “live” with a portrait for a bit before it is declared finished, just in case I suddenly see something that I have missed, nice to step away and come back with fresh eyes.
Made some minor changes but she is now finished and signed. Here is the scanned image.
On The Drawing Board – Channing
Beautiful dog and a great photo!
This portrait is a commission for the clients mum as a Christmas present, yes Christmas is looming quite soon! The photo is so good because the client is a photographer, heaven for me. The only changes I will do from the actual photograph is to clean up her tongue and tidy up a few hairs on her chest, otherwise everything is perfect. I love the way the light catches her eyes. This will be drawn on A3 paper.
Below is the first stage, just establishing the light and shade at this point.
Now have completed all the basic work, moving onto the first stage of detail.
Have started the detail working from the left ear down, haven’t completed it all yet, still have the right side to go. No short cuts to be had with all that wonderful fur, very time consuming but like the look of the thick luscious coat.
Have now worked on most areas of the coat, next step is to concentrate on the eyes and nose area; centre panel of the face.
Almost finished, just want to “live” with it a few days on the easel to make sure I haven’t missed anything.
Final portrait – scanned image
