Brodie and McGee

My sister Gail and her husband, Steve, have two delightful Shih Shu dogs, Brodie and McGee. I offered to paint them some time ago (quite some time ago actually). Gail and Steve sent me pictures and I gave it a try. That first try was pretty sad and never got too far. Well.....I decided to give it another try. I figured I had grown as an artist and had new skills and insights to apply to the painting in the months since my first try. This is the picture of the boys that Gail and Steve originally sent me:

My first try was partially a failure because I tried to duplicate this photo minus my sister's leg.....didn't work. After a few months of thinking and many new insights about composition and design, I knew that I wanted to change this photo to have the boys next to each other and resized due to their change in position. This decision called for learning how to move sections of photos in Photoshop. Success!!! Here is the result:

So now I have a composition that makes much more sense. I also knew that I needed to come up with a different blanket and background so as not to compete with the focus...the boys!! I started out with a background that was similar to the blue couch in the photo with indications of the texture weave. I also had a blanket with the beginning of a texture weave. Once I achieved that stage...I realized two textures would also compete with the boys. Here is that stage:

As a result I decided to eliminate the majority of the texture in the background and only have texture in the blanket. I also began putting in more color in the boys. At this point I worked on their eyes which always brings a portrait to life.

As I looked at the portrait at this point I decided there was too much blanket and background. I decided that a crop would bring the focus fully on the boys. I taped off the new borders and continued to build the color and texture in the boys.

After adding more detail and adjusting color I decided it was time to get my sister's opinion.....was I close? Did I catch their expressions? Did it look like the boys? What would she want changed? Here is the cropped photo. I took this while the painting was still on my easel and not outside in natural light so some of the colors are not as brilliant as in the painting.

Gail and Steve felt that I had nailed the personalities and expressions of the boys. Yeah!! The only request was to darken the right ear of McGee (on the right). I will make this change and some finishing touches and "The Boys" will be ready to be shipped to Michigan!

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