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I thought it would be interesting to follow the progress of a portrait project from the early stages to its completion. As a matter of fact, I take reference photos of my subjects (they just will not pose) and from my work as I progress. I found that I can more easily identify where I need to make changes when looking at a photo then when looking at the actual work on my easel. I will simply post these photos as I work. This piece portrays three Springer Spaniels, the father (Hunter), and his two sons Bentley and Winston. Although the same breed, they are very different individuals, physically and in personality. Bentley is much larger then the other two, and much more laid back; and Hunter is significantly larger then Winston, eager and seemingly wiser. Winston is the youngest, bubbling with enthusiasm and the smallest. As I said earlier, I work from photographs (I took over 300 photos on two separate occasions).   I am using four photos for this project - Winston squinted his eyes in the primary reference photo so a second photo was used to help me “open them”.  Since they are different sizes, and could never be caught in a group in one photo, I used proportional dividers and three different grids when I laid out the initial sketch, to keep their relative proportions accurate.  This is the result of the initial layout.

I then began blocking in the subjects. Since I work on an easel (as opposed to a flat table) and pastels create dust as they are used, gravity draws this dust down on the surface.  That being the case, I work mostly from top down and stray to other areas only to keep things in balance.  By the way, I create my pastel works on Stonehenge paper that I have dry mounted on acid free foam core.

Now I can begin working in earnest.  I focus on the eyes first. As the saying goes, “the eyes are the mirrors to the soul”. This will sound corny to some, but for me, once I get the eyes and they have the “look” that subject gets its soul. From there forward the subject seems to take over and the rest just seems together on its own.

Here is a close up of Bentley at this stage.

I will update this blog from time to time. Meanwhile if you have any questions, please ask.