Saturday, December 28, 2013

Time Lapse Dog Portrait - painting progress of Springer spaniel

Time to reveal my very first time lapse video of the progress of a dog painting! This portrait of a Springer Spaniel named Rex was done using pastels.



Wednesday, December 18, 2013

Wolf gaze...painting in progress

After working hard to get the eyes to look realistic, I think I am now satisfied with the wolf's gaze. I may go back and do some tweaking but for now, I have to finish that back leg!  
 

Sunday, December 15, 2013

The eyes have it...painting the windows to the soul!

Like many portraitists, I usually begin a painting by starting with the eyes. It is most important to get them just right so I won't continue a painting until I am satisfied them. You can see from the image below that I have done the exact opposite in this case.  Since this painting is large for my standards,  I had to work my way down the painting as opposed to working from the eyes outward to prevent smudging of the black pastel. Now wouldn't that be a disaster!  
 
I hope you enjoy following the progress of this wolf painting. Please share if you like!
 

Friday, December 13, 2013

Today's painting update of stalking gray wolf (pastel)

For now I am leaving the ears and moving on to painting the left side of the wolf's head. I will probably go back to touch up the ears again later but they will have to do for now.  I've included an enlarged cropped section of the ears to see the detail of the fur. Too bad my camera could not capture the richness of the colors but that will have to wait until I am ready to do the final scan.
 
 
Note the difference in the shape of the ears from this update to the previous entry.


Thursday, December 12, 2013

Stalking wolf painting update: those furry ears!

It seems I am stalling at finishing the ears of my wolf...perhaps that is because I am having some difficulty with them.
The main reason is because the original reference image had the ears folded back and I did not want to portray them that way on my painting as I felt it made the wolf look too mean. So I hunted the reference library for "better" forward facing wolf ears to use as a guide. 
You may notice the ears are now slightly smaller and shaped differently from my original outline. Let's hope this works! 
My second excuse is I am having trouble getting focused on painting during this busy holiday season. Too many things to do in so little time but I do hope to finish him before the new year!!

Sunday, December 8, 2013

The Gift of a Dog Portrait- Poodle Maltese Mix Painting in Pastel

I often get requests from clients to keep a portrait commission "secret" because it is intended as a birthday or Christmas gift for a special  someone. I love surprises! After many days or weeks of  secretly sharing updates of the work in progress via email with the client, nothing pleases me more to know that the stunt was pulled off and the recipient had no idea !!

No longer a secret, this next commission I can now share with you. I was told the recipient was very pleasantly surprised and even got emotional.  It warms my heart to hear and read such stories and knowing my painting has touched someone's life in a positive way. I really do have the best job in the world!


poodle maltese mix painting of pet portrait by Colette Theriault
"Korky"
8"x10"
pastel
Commission
To view the progression of this portrait visit my website www.colettetheriault.com