Every year the Christmas orders keep pouring in and I keep painting portraits nonstop. Doing each and every painting justice when working on deadlines can be challenging and I end up working very long hours. However, when a painting comes together it is all worth all that work.
I just love how these Golden Doodles turned out. If you missed it the photo reference had a person in it and the dogs wore harnesses.
I started with taking out all the undesired elements and then recreated a new backdrop by adding more greenery and making the ledge on which the dogs are sitting shorter.
The eyes were lost again in the photo, so special care was taken to bring out the highlights. By keeping the background painterly and a bit nondescript the focus shifts more to the dog's heads.
This cutie had one of it's eyes closed. I was told he tends to squint a lot. For the painting, I painted in an opened eye. I think in a pet portrait it is nicer when the pets look back at their owners.
I have several paintings in various stages of completion and it's another weekend of work for me.
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