I am finishing the year with working on another portrait commission of a Shih Tzu. This is the 2nd portrait I have done of the family dog. Unfortunately this cutie has passed into doggy heaven as well and I hope that the painting will be a nice reminder of times spend with their beloved pet.
When I looked at this reference photo, I thought to myself there is so much clutter of background things that really do nothing for this portrait. Using Photoshop I cropped out everything that I though was distracting. Then I thought why not blur out the background and really push the dog to the foreground.
Now when looking at the composition everything looks calmer, however there are still two things sticking out as white in the background that need to be way toned down.
I don't get to paint with very vibrant colors too often and really look forward to adding vibrant cad orange to the vest. Now it's a matter of lightly applying some color just to fill the canvas and get a feel for what works and what doesn't.
With every new layer of paint more and more of the details will come show. I will post another update as soon as I can.
