Great Danes: : Large pet portrait commission

The Boys: Ziggy and Rory

24" x 36"

Oil with palette knives on Ampersand Gessobord

Comission

Tim asked me to paint a portrait of his two Great Danes as a gift for his partners's birthday. These large dogs needed a big canvas and it took about 8 painting sessions to complete. I took some progress shots along the way. 

Here was my set up. I printed out the reference photo at actual size (on 4 color copies 11" x 17" that I taped together.)

I started with the most important things first-the dogs. I painted a little of green background around them so that I could make sure they would read on the dark green and also to soften the edges of the dogs a little bit.

Then I painted the trees in the background.

Then the flowers, grass, and finally the rocks. The rocks were the hardest thing to paint. They have a lot of colors and textures that I wanted to capture but didn't want them to distract from the dogs.

The painting is now hanging in its home in Austin Texas and the owner sent me this pic of Rory on the couch staring at the painting on the wall. Apparently, he does this every day for 15 minutes at a time.