Sabrina's Pit Bull Portrait
I'm working on my portrait of Sabrina and Ollie. I worked on Ollie last week, and now I'm adding Sabrina before painting in the background. You can see a printout of Sabrina's original photo taped onto the canvas for reference.
Here's her portrait so far:
Like Ollie, Sabrina has many complex colors in her coat - greys, purples and browns. I used a similar mix of colors to Ollie's portrait, but with more yellows and warm browns. I started with a purple underpainting:
Next, I marked in the areas of high contrast: her eyes, nose, mouth and the edges of her face. This helps me check the proportions in my sketch before I begin the detail.
Next, I started mixing the yellow and brown colors into the purple.
I love the shading on the side of her face in the original photo, and I plan to modify Ollie a bit so that his face is shaded on the same side. Sabrina's fur is much smoothier and glossier than Ollie's poodle fur, so it's easier to see her bone structure.
I got my smaller brush and put in the finer details on her eyes, nose and mouth. I also put in some transparent highlights with white to show the light on her fur.
Here's the painting so far:
This is a closeup of her eye:
