Lisel's Guard Hairs

The last couple of days have been spent adding hairs to Lisel's head and body! Mainly the white "wire" hairs. The painting is beginning to look more and more like Lisel's photo!

Lisel Muzzle

This dog just has the cutest muzzle! I have layered soooo many colors on to get all the variations in that mustache of hers! Am battling with the eyes a bit, I am coming to the conclusion that there are some hairs that I am not able to see in the photo that are covering the corner of her right eye (left when you are looking at the painting) which make it look a bit smaller than the other eye. Still have some work to do there! Her nose is looking good, and I started working on her white guard hairs, they will need glazed over and painted again, and glazed over again, I think, to get the effect of alot of little white hairs and not clumps of white.

The Layers of Lisel

I am gradually adding layers of color to Lisel's coat to get depth before I add any white hairs.

Meet Lisel!

I have been commissioned to paint a 24"x30" portrait of Lisel, she is a Deutsch-Drahthaar, a German hunting dog!

I started with a base of raw sienna mixed with white, I have gone over it several times with mixtures of Burnt Umber, Naphthol Red Light and Cadmium Yellow Medium Hue (the background, that is!). Lisel has had Burnt Umber painted on her darker shadows, a mixture of Raw Sienna and White on some of her lighter areas and I then covered a majority of her in a mixture of Burnt Umber and Naphthol Red Light. She'll have several layers of color to give her depth before I work on adding in the white "guard hairs". The blades of grass on the lower half of the painting will be added "here and there" throughout the process!! (Depends on my mood, I guess!)

Finished Sunny Dressage Horse

OK, I'm finished, I have added a few stray hairs to the top of the forelock and now I just give it a couple of days to dry fully before I varnish it!