Bruce

Meet Bruce. His owner won a pet portrait in a silent auction in aid of the Tickled Pink charity. This is the final product and he measures  12" by 8" and was painted with Conte hard pastel on Sennelier pastel card.

I do hope that the owner is pleased with it.

Out of interest these are these stages in Bruce's development:

This is the reference photograph chosen from the selection provided.

This is the initial sketch in burnt sienna Conte crayon. It is important to have this right. Can you spot the deliberate mistake?

This is the underpainting. With a "white" coat it is particularly important to introduce other colours to ensure that the finished painting does not look flat. There is an old adage in portrait painting that it is dangerous to achieve a likeness too early in the process - probably because you can then loose it again before the end. No danger of that here!

Now the final colours have been blocked in, and that deliberate error corrected - Bruce's neck was too long in the initial sketch. He looked a little like a llama.

We are nearly there now.  

The finished product.