Pet Portrait of a Mixed Breed Rescue Dog in Oil on Canvas

Lila is the second of a series of five oil pet portraits I did for a client who is giving them as gifts to her bridesmaids. They are the bridesmaids dogs - what lovely, thoughtful gifts, aren't they?  (For the first portrait of George, a Whippet, click here).

Lila is a sweet dog who was a rescue from the humane society as a puppy.

I'll show you a bit of how I painted her below:

The first thing I do is choose a reference photo, provided by the client, that will work well for the portrait. I focus on this one photo, but use others for guidance to see details or make adjustments.

Then I make a careful drawing of the dog's main features and transfer the drawing to a 5x7 inch canvas.

I like to begin paintings with the background so I paint an outdoorsy color with a broad brush. Lila loves to run around outdoors and I think this background will suit her.

Once the background is painted, I paint the dark areas of her fur adding highlights of light blue or brown depending on what I see in the reference photo (you can see part of it to the left).

Click any of the images to see them larger:

Here I'm continuing with strokes of color on the face:

I will block in the color roughly like this for all her fur, then add details to the fur:

Then I paint the nose and mouth. (The paint is still wet when I take the photos so there are little white specks of reflected light in the picture, but those will not be there when the painting is dry):

And finally the eyes:

After spending quite some time with details of the portrait, I lighten the background and adjust the color where needed to make the portrait stand out. Finally Lila is finished!

'Lila' - dog pet portrait in oils, 7x5 inches

---

Would you like a special painting done? I'm happy to take custom orders. Contact me for a custom painting of your pet, home, garden, grandkids, favorite vacation spot or whatever your heart desires.
To receive my posts by email, fill in your email address under FOLLOW BY EMAIL in the right hand column and click Submit. You'll receive my posts in your email inbox at the end of each day that a post is made.