This past year, my brother Wes, and his girlfriend Liz, became foster parents for a tiny puppy. It was a 'foster failure,' they fell in love with her and adopted her the second she was old enough. Oly has since been a huge part of their family and ours as well. Later in the year they adopted another dog, this time, a 2-year-old shepherd they call Emmett. They've become their own little family unit, and its adorable!
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| This is Oly, shortly after bringing her home. She's much bigger now! |
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| Emmett, the day they brought him home as a 2 year old rescue. |
As I've often said, I can make you a gift that will be much nicer than the gift I can afford to buy you. So this year for Christmas when I was racking my brain for the perfect gift for them, I finally decided on a portrait of Oly and Emmett.
Originally I thought about doing a black and white profile, with the two dogs looking at the other. It's a classic look, but it's been done, and I'm sure it would be easy enough for anyone with a computer to do. I wanted more of my artistic hand to show. That's one of the reasons I love Monet's paintings so much, you can see his hand in each and every brush stroke. So I decided to do a more realistic drawing with the old style profiles as my inspiration.
Wes and Liz had just gotten professional pictures of them and the dogs. I got a hold of the files and poured over them, looking for source material. It was a bit challenging, but I found a shot of each dog that would work, one of Oly looking to the right, and Emmett (almost) looking to the left, presumably eyeing a squirrel in some tree!
As I began working, getting each dogs outline down and making sure the two lined up, I realized I'd chosen images where the two dogs' personality's were opposite! Oly, who is normally jumping off the walls and everyone else in the room (she's a puppy, can you really expect anything different?) looks calm and rather serene. While Emmett, who is normally calm, sweet, and far more concerned with getting you to rub his belly than running around, looks ready to jump up and play the moment you say the word! It was an unintended, but interesting juxtaposition. Maybe it's a little wishful thinking for my brother, that his 65 pound puppy will one day mellow out a bit!
I began with Oly, she's almost completely black and I knew it would take a lot of graphite to get her coloring right, it would be the bulk of the work and I wanted to get it done first. I covered the outline of Emmett so I didn't smudge it, there are few things worse than having to erase and redo parts of a drawing because they got smudged. Oly, true to her nature, was a challenge. I hadn't anticipated just how many layers of my darkest graphite it would take to make that dog black. I had to go about it systematically, making sure I left the lighter areas light enough to create visible fur, I was constantly aware of the risk that the whole drawing would just become a dark blurry mess.
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| I started with a light graphite, HB, and ended up pressing hard with my darkest pencil, an 8B. |
My favorite part of drawing animals is getting to draw fur! There are always interesting little short cuts and tricks you can use when drawing. By creating a texture, or drawing only part of something, you can trick the brain into filling in the gaps. The best example of this is probably a brick wall. If you're drawing a brick wall, it's very labor intensive and difficult to map out and draw every single brick. Not only that, but that kind of detail can actually be distracting and overwhelming for the viewer. So you create a brick-like texture, and draw a few bricks in certain places, that way you create the illusion of a brick wall with out overwhelming your viewer and keeping the focus of the piece where it's supposed to be. This is what I do with fur, it's literally impossible to draw every singe hair on an animal. Especially with Oly, being so dark, you would not even be able to see each hair, as they are so numerous and all overlapping to the point where you would just end up with a big blurry mess. So, by filling in most of the fur with a shade of color, and creating a texture with the direction of my marks, then adding specific spots where you do draw each strand of fur. This way, you can trick the brain into seeing all the fur you didn't actually draw.
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| See the hair on the giraffes neck and chin? That's what I'm talking about! |
I'd never drawn an animal so dark though, and Oly was certainly challenging, but I was pleased with the way she came out. Now it was Emmett's turn. Emmett came with his own challenges, he has a wide variety of shades, some are due to light and shadow, some due to the color variation of his coat. It can be tricky to get it all just right, so the finished drawing has depth and doesn't end up looking flat. I covered Oly with another sheet of paper so I would accidentally smudge her, and set to work.
My brother's girlfriend Liz already feels like a sister to me. She did my makeup on my wedding day, comes to visit me in Chicago, and gone out with my mother, sister, and I on lunch and shopping dates. She's become a part of our family. We laugh about having voices for our pets. When she and Wes are around their pets, they talk for them each with a voice specific to each animal. Wes's cat Amaranta is an old Russian man, while Oly is an excited little girl. My cat Aria's voice is a high pitched, hesitant voice. When they brought Emmett home, they quickly noticed he would consistently come up to you, put out his paw as if to say "Hi I'm Emmett", then lay down for a belly rub. Wes said that's all he know's how to say, "Hi, I'm Emmett." in a bit of a dopey voice.
When I started drawing Emmett, I would work for a while, then show the drawing to Jon (my husband) and he would immediately done Emmett's dopey voice and say "Hi, I'm Emmett." It became the one thing that was constantly in my head the entire time I worked on the drawing.
When I finally finished him, I took off the paper covering Oly, worked the graphite around the two dogs to unify them, and added final touches. I trimmed and framed it. I was pleased with my work, and stared sending pictures of it to my parents, who also liked it and said Wes and Liz would love it. Because it had taken me so long to decide on the drawing as their gift, I was working under the pressure of having it finished by Christmas. I wasn't really thinking about taking pictures of it while I was working, I was so focused on getting it finished in time! Finish I did! I took great care in wrapping it so the frame would not be damaged on the drive to Kentucky.
I could not wait to see them open it! When we finally all sat down in my parents living room to open gifts, I jumped up to be the first to hand out the presents Jon and I had brought. While they were opening them, I made sure to keep an eye on Wes, as he struggled with my thoroughly taped up box. Their reaction was everything I was hoping for! They even came over to hug me. I've noticed as I've grown up, I'm much more excited about giving gifts at Christmas, than getting them.
This experience started simply as me just wanted to give my brother and Liz a nice gift, and has become an opportunity. Liz posted a picture of the drawing to Facebook, which got several comments asking if I was available for commissions. I have since made the decision to start marketing myself as a pet portrait artist. So, if you're interested, please send me a message! I'm excited about getting to do something I love, and I'm excited about what the future will hold!
