‘3xWeekly’ A Pastel Dog Image from PMP

Didn’t quite make three acrylic pet paintings this week, but did do a pastel dog portrait. After watching a great YouTube video explaining the different pastels, I decided to buy a set of 64 Inscribe soft pastels. A dog image seemed like the perfect subject to practice with, especially since I didn't have time to do a painting. The results were pretty good, even though there could have been more refinement.  I’d like to take a course working with pastels to learn how to get a cleaner image.

‘3xWeekly’ Cherie’s Sleeping Labrador

This week as usual, I was falling behind on my 3xWeekly pet portraits. Wanting everything to be perfect is a dangerous thing, especially when you’re learning. Anyway, with a shopping addiction and the constant barrage of e-mail from art supply shops, I bought more System 3 Heavy Body Acrylics. With the paint came a free CD from my current favourite artist Hashim Akib. ‘Lay It On Thick Spread It On Thin’ was the perfect inspiration for this painting of my friend Cherie’s Labrador. I spotted the dog's photo a while ago and thought it would make a nice painting; after watching Hashim paint the goldfish it all came together.

‘3xWeekly’ My Friend's Dog - Totoro

My friend posted a picture of her dog Totoro on Facebook and he is absolutely adorable. Hopefully Lynn will think I’ve done an o.k. likeness. I made a few sketches in graphite, then a quick drawing in soft pastel, then another in oil pastel with colour. Although there was a lot of initial prep work, this painting didn’t come easily.

The final portrait was done in acrylic on 8” x 10” board without tracing. There are a lot of things that could be fixed on this painting, but I'm never going to get 3 a week done at this rate.

In hindsight, it might have been better to do a larger painting with less detail…maybe next time.

‘3xWeekly’ Paint My Photo - Malamute Dog

Found a fabulous picture of a Malamute while searching on PMP-art. This time I didn’t just start the painting without preparation: my first step was to draw the dog on A3 paper in graphite, then two smaller versions with watercolour pencils.


For the final painting the dog’s outline was traced with a printout onto A3 board primed with cobalt blue & titanium white. Using colours from the ‘Vibrant Acrylics’ cat lesson, the dog’s image came to light. It’s not an exact representation of the photo, but I’m happy with the result.

'3xWeekly' Pet Portrait Lucy My Tibetan Terrier

Found an old picture of Lucy after her first visit to the groomer; let me tell you it was a shock. Now her hair is usually short…but not that short.

B4 Groomer              After Groomer

Tried to keep the painting loose and small so it could be finished quickly…well that didn’t work. After a week trip to the US to see my aunt in the hospital, the painting did take A LOT longer. Although not completely happy with the painting, I've decided it's finished.  The portrait was on heavy cardboard so it was easy to adjust the size with a heavy paper cutter. The original image was A4, but after cutting off the bottom, it's now 8"x10".  It was great to be able to see what the difference would be in Photoshop before actually cutting it.

'3xWeekly’ Another PMP Image - Harvey the Boxer Dog

This week I found inspiration from a fabulous boxer dog photo of Harvey on PMP. Traced the dogs image and after painting an orange background, started to fill in his face.  It took three days to look nice but it still wasn't finished. After adding gold to the background and changing the shade of the darker brown it was time to put my paints down.  This is the first time I've really liked my choice of shade and value for a dog with this colouring.  Still not ready to paint Woody again.

‘3xWeekly’ Looking for inspiration

Started painting earlier in the week so hopefully it'll be smooth sailing. Instead of using my own photos I searched for a Westie image on PMP and found a great photo. Made a good start but didn't finish the painting till Wednesday.

For my second and larger painting (A3), my pet Samoyed Princess was perfect, because the dog is white and I was inspired to use methods from 'Vibrant Acrylics'. Rather than draw the dog by hand, I decided to trace the photo to make things go faster... so buying an A3 printer seemed logical :)). Using colours that Asam Ahib used in his tree painting; the portrait of Princess took only 2 days. After the first day I was in love with it; after the second... and some more fiddling, even more so.

For my third portrait I found another reference photo on PMP of a beautiful cat, 'Spooky' ; if you want to follow the link you must join PMP.  This cat proved to be a little difficult, but the end result was unique. The painting could have been more refined, but because it took over 5 days,
 I had to stop working on it. In this photo, the edges were cropped to make the painting look better.  There is a pattern beginning to form here…I can’t even do '3xWeekly' never mind daily. Don’t know why some paintings are easy and others very difficult. Hopefully I will begin to improve and start painting faster.

To get to 100 pet portraits I need more inspiration and many more dog or cat photos. If you would like a non professional painting of your pet, please send me photos. Preferably of the animal looking at the camera... sorry, I know it's hard to get those photos. Don't expect anything too great; they will not be photo realistic because that's not my style. Most will be on A4 paper and some on A3.  You can e-mail me an electronic copy at amsonart@gmail.com... I’ll post my painting on this blog and if you like it and live in the UK, I will mail it to you.

‘3xWeekly’ More of Moose the Dog

Hadn't started painting and it was Wednesday, but at least I knew my subject… more of Moose. After looking at the cat painting by Hashim Akib in the ‘Vibrant Acrylics’ book, I decided to incorporate those colours in a Moose painting. Well to begin with it didn’t look like it was working but after the second day it was much better.

Moose was proving to be a good subject, hence the next painting. This time I started with purple, my sister-in-law's favourite colour. This one came out pretty good as well. Hey this is going good…so far.

For the last painting this week I went back to my old standby…Lenny. I really miss him, he was a truly fantastic friend and companion. The photo was one of my favourites so I wanted to see if I could recreate the same feeling with acrylics on paper. The results were really good…I don’t want to brag but I’m getting much better at this. Let’s hope I can keep it going.

‘3xWeekly’ Even More Dog Portraits

Wow, so glad I didn’t go with ‘a painting a day’; '3xWeekly is hard enough. With family obligations, my two young dogs, house work, part time job, painting, photographing, blogging and last but not least social media… it’s Wednesday and I haven’t started my three paintings yet. Feeling a little overwhelmed, I know it’s my own doing but none the less.

Each week an image must be chosen, then cropped for composition, then printed (that’s always a disaster), then traced (think I’ll hold off on drawing for now), then and only then painted. Let’s hope these new Atelier paints I bought at 'All About Art' do the trick :)).

This week’s first painting is of my dog Lenny and it's proving difficult; getting used to the Atelier paints is not easy. Even though blending with Atelier paints is supposed to be a walk in the park...it's a problem for me. The paints are thinner and the spray bottle seems to leave big droplets that can’t be blended. I used the technique of loading lots of colours on the brush, which I learned from Marylin Allis and the overall painting is o.k.. They eyes could probably be better but I’ll save that for another painting.

Again using the techniques learned from 'All About Art' artist Marylin Allis, I painted a quick picture of my friend's dog Jessie. Although this one is more of a caricature, I really liked the results. My friend liked it as well and asked me to send her the painting. My first commission... well sort of.

My final painting of the week is not the best, but Moose, in my opinion, has difficult colouring. At least I was able to try out different techniques and brushes. I’m going to paint Moose again next week with some regular acrylics. His face is really fantastic, but the reds, browns and oranges are challenging. My original painting was on A4 paper, but I've cropped it square in this photo and it looks better.

Well at least one painting was a success!!!

3xWeekly - Difficult Week of Painting More Dogs

In 'Painting Daily' Carol talks of letting a painting go if it’s not working; this week I’m finding that difficult. Maybe it’s because my friend asked me to paint her dog, or maybe it’s because it doesn't look right. So far three days are gone and instead of letting go…I’m procrastinating. In her book, Carol explains that if you don't like something it could be the composition; not sure that's it. It's probably the crap drawing. In my haste to paint, I haven’t really worked on getting the image drawn correctly and it’s cost me 3 days. So with a heavy heart I'm calling it quits on this painting. Next time more time needs to be dedicated to drawing; or for expediency the image could be traced.

Previously, I painted my brother’s dog in an abstract style and wasn’t impressed. This time it was going to be more photo realistic...well that was the plan. Using cyan blue, process magenta and white I built up the colour to try and reflect the hair. It didn’t work, and after obsessing over it for a while, I tried adding some pastel...but that didn’t work either. With four days already lost… it has to be deemed finished.

My Samoyed's were such fantastic dogs it’s sad that they are no longer with me, but I have some great photos to paint from. This was going to be a quick painting but I did spend two days on it. Even if the painting could be improved, this week’s lesson learned has to be… don’t obsess and let it go. I will live to paint another day and hopefully keep learning.

‘3xWeekly’ - Paintings of My Dog & Cat

Feeling good, last week my first four dog paintings came out better than expected and I'm really excited to continue. After searching like crazy for my next photo, I came across a really old picture of my dog Lenny. For a big dog he lays in funny positions. With leftover paint from the previous weeks' paintings I had already painted a few sheets of A4 acrylic paper with yellow ochre background colour.

The first painting came out really nice, I used process cyan, magenta and process yellow to create the dark tones and really loved the outcome. At first the background didn’t look good, so I took a pallet knife and scraped in a few extra colours.

Didn't like my first try at the second painting; the dog was painted in blues and greens. Thought the tones might be too similar, but that was also true for the first photo. Then decided it might be the background, so I put orange & yellow over the magenta and outlined part of the dog in black. Think it's much better now.

The third painting was inspired by an old photo of my cat. This photo was always one of my favourites and thought it would look nice on A3 paper. For this painting I went with a blue background against a white/magenta cat. In my opinion, this one really came out nice.  No more experimenting with this image… for now that is.

Really starting to feel more confident, 3xweekly so far is working out.  Even though each painting isn't perfect... I'm learning! 

'3xWeekly' - Paintings of a Brown Cocker Spaniel

For the longest time I couldn’t decide on a subject or medium for my '3xWeekly'. Because the results of my previously painted acrylic dogs weren’t great, I was discouraged and thought they wouldn’t be a suitable subject. In Carol’s book ‘Daily Painting’ there was a painting of a dog by Kimberley Santini that I absolutely loved. On Kimberley’s blog it was clear that when she started, in 2006, her dogs didn’t look as good as they do today. So, if Kimberly could improve...I could too.

Being eager to begin, I did four paintings of my friend's Brown Cocker Spaniel this week. After the first painting I decided to put the background colour down first, then draw the image, then paint in the eyes, nose and mid-tones. Finally, layer the dark and lights of the hairs. Some people say it’s best to do the eyes last; but the painting looks too scary. I did four of the same image trying different techniques and colours. 

Before ‘3xWeekly’ I would never have just stopped painting and would have obsessed over each painting until I got discouraged and gave up. Knowing that I would paint another day, it was easier not to get bogged down by the results and just enjoy the painting and learning process.