Pug Dog Pet Portrait Part 2

This oil portrait is of two pug brothers. In this post, I paint the one named Horton. You can see how I painted the other pug, Grommet, here.

Horton is so similar to Grommet that I could not tell them apart at first. But their owner showed me how to differentiate them by their forehead wrinkles! Grommet's wrinkles are vertical while Horton has some horizontal wrinkles giving him a slightly worried look - see the image above. He is a fun-loving dog who plays the sidekick to his more serious older brother.

To see how I painted Horton - just read on... or you can skip to the final completed painting here.

Horton has already been sketched onto the canvas next to Grommet. I begin painting him by roughing in his fur colors with a flat brush:


Once I've painted most of the areas of color and those all-important forehead wrinkles, I decide to paint his brown eyes:


Then his black nose. You can see that the fur on his face is not detailed yet so I'll work on that once the nose is done.


The next thing is to add the fur on his neck and then chest:


Finally, I go back over the portrait, adjusting features, colors and contrast and adding any other details that I may have overlooked before. This part takes quite a bit of time.

Since I decided to show foliage in the background, I continue the trees behind Horton along with adding a hint of the rock upon which they sit:

Portrait of two pugs in oil on canvas
Grommet & Horton - pet portrait of two pugs in oil
Above is the completed pug portrait - what do you think? I do hope you enjoyed following along!


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