Safe and Well-Loved

1/16/24 Pepper (reference photo by Theresa Pulford Doss)

1/17/24 Parker (reference photo by Theresa Pulford Doss)

1/17/24 Maverick (reference photo by Ash Leigh) 

My pet portrait fundraiser is still going strong. It’s fun and often moving to hear pet owners’ stories of their animals. Many are rescues, and while I don’t know the details of their circumstances (and don’t really want to know), I can only assume that if they were adopted from a shelter, they have heart-breaking back stories. It’s wonderful to hear their happy endings, now safe and well-loved in their forever homes.

Some pets, gray around the muzzle, have been around the block; others have terminal illnesses. Even though I know these dogs only through their photos and the stories their owners tell me, somehow it helps me to draw them when I have learned a bit of what they have been through.

In this bunch, Maverick (at right) was my favorite to draw. I received an excellent reference photo (you’d be surprised how many bad ones I get – dark, out of focus, ears partially cropped out), which makes drawing such a pleasure. And what a delightful expression!

1/19/24 Tilly (reference photo by Jackson Maddox)

Well, maybe my favorite was actually Tilly, the white pup with closed eyes (at left). The other two reference photos I was offered were both bad, so this one was my only option. My first thought was that it would be difficult to capture the “life” of an animal without showing its eyes, but the owner said it was his favorite photo of Tilly. Studying it longer, I realized that you know a dog feels happy and safe when she’s dozing on a couch with her little pink tongue sticking out. No wonder it was his favorite.

Speaking of Tilly, her reference photo gave me an interesting lesson. In all of these pet portraits, I ignore any detail that is not the dog’s face; I usually omit collars, backgrounds and accessories (except for Charlie’s mint green kerchief, which I couldn’t resist because it matched his owner’s jacket in the photo). Tilly’s chin was resting on the arm of a couch, which I left undrawn. When I was taking the photo to document the materials used (see bottom of post), I realized how weird her face looked without a clear indication of what she was resting on. It took me about 30 seconds to scribble a few stripes to represent the couch – and suddenly it became clear. Sometimes context is important. It’s funny that I didn’t see that until I took the photo.

1/19/24 Mr. Fuzzy (reference photo by Jackson Maddox)

One more technical note: For Parker, the black dog with the intense look, I wanted just a bit of an underpainting for the darkest areas, so I used a waterbrush to “lick” pigment from a black Caran d’Ache Museum Aquarelle. I’ve been using an underpainting with black animals because I think it helps to give a more saturated coverage of the paper.

However, I didn’t give Mr. Fuzzy, the other black dog (at right), an underpainting, and I’m not sure it made much difference. So maybe it’s not worth applying an underpainting that requires drying time. There’s no doubt that the most challenging critters to draw are the black ones, and I’m still working out the most effective approach. 

1/19/24 Wiley Coyote (reference photo by Jackson Maddox)

Underpainting for Parker (at right)

I wonder if someone dyed Mr. Fuzzy's
beard pink?

Here's the photo I took that made me realize I needed to define
the couch that Tilly's head was resting on for the composition to make sense.