Tuesday, February 18, 2014

Commission of a Golden Retriever Pencil Portrait Drawing

  With my pastel portraits being the most popular option lately, I was excited to receive this dog pencil portrait commission because it gave me the opportunity to try out a brand new paper. I've always wanted to try out Mellotex paper and so, after finding a Canadian distributor I finally ordered a stack of sheets. Although, Mellotex is more expensive than most papers I use, I quickly realized it is well worth the difference in price as it is by far the most amazing paper I have ever had the pleasure to work with! And I've tried many, many different kinds of papers.

  So here is the portrait of "River", in a pensive pose. Along with the wip images below, you can see the original reference photo and compare the modifications I have done to the portrait.
Golden Retriever Portrait
Pencil Drawing
approx. 8"x10"
COMMISSION





  Here are a few work in progress stages I promised to show along with the original reference image supplied by the client:




For more pet portrait and animal drawings, please visit my website artwork galleries.


Sunday, February 16, 2014

The painting studio and animal portraits

It must seem like after completing the wolf painting, I have disappeared from the face of the earth but actually, I have been working on several projects at once. So I thought I'd share a few projects that are at various stages of completion in my studio.

First is a very rough sketch of a six cat portrait commission, most of which are Siamese type breeds and one amusing Scottish fold! Two cats in particular will be challenging to paint due to poor quality photos but with the client's feedback and scanning/zooming the photos on my computer to see more detail, I am confident it will all work out in the end.  I did start the cat on the top left which is one that I only have poor quality photos of. I felt I'd better start with the most challenging one and then the rest should be a breeze, right?

Another project I will be working on is that of my friend's beautiful dog, a flat coated retriever named "Galoche".  I will share more of this special commission on my blog at a later date. Below is a mock- up image composed of two photographs combined to create the reference I will use for the dog portrait.
Lastly, I completed a dog pencil drawing commission of which I have not shown any updates yet. Once the owner approves the final version of their portrait, I will post the artwork along with a few work in progress stages. So stay tuned and have a happy day everyone!


Saturday, February 1, 2014

Gray (Timber) Wolf Painting in pastel SOLD!

After doing a few more touch ups this morning, I finally call this painting done! I haven't created a large painting of this size for a while because they take so much time to complete. Although, some of you might remember I did start this piece early last year, I had to put it aside to concentrate on more pressing work. One of my New Year's resolution was to finish this piece before starting any new paintings.

I hope you enjoyed watching it progress, albeit, rather slowly, I admit. I hope I haven't bored any of you with my many updates as I felt at times it would never progress to the final stage!

So here is my first painting of 2014!

Grey Timber Wolf Painting in Pastel by Canadian Wildlife Artist Colette Theriault
"Proceed With Caution"
(Grey Wolf)
Pastel
16" x 26"
to view more of my work, visit my website www.colettetheriault.com