Lilly Portrait

This drawing is of Sean and Tiffany's dog, Lilly.  I worked this as a surprise to them as she's just as much their "baby" as their first child who was born about a month or so ago.

Drawing this was a little easier except for the ears and the curly tuffs under the face.  With each drawing, I face various challenges but I feel it's good for me and helps keep my aging brain active trying to work out solutions.....lol.   Even with that said, I do feel a bit overwhelmed or frustrated at times, depending on my mood.  It might cross my mind it's too much, tempting me to quit, but I do try to persevere and follow through without giving up.   

The challenge I faced with this one was the areas of long fur.  Like hair, my eyes/brain want to focus on every little strand.  I have to fight that tendency and try to see shapes or groups of color, darks, and lights while at the same time trying to suggest more detail.  It's a balancing act for me that I do struggle with at times.

As with other drawings, I started out with a line drawing.  This time instead of blending out the lines, working in black and white adding color later, I jumped in adding color on separate layers.  Once I had the base color down, I would untick the line drawing and only bring it back up for reference as I worked.  At the same time, I had Lilly's photo on my computer screen to view as I worked on my Ipad.

Using the Gouache brush tool, I scribbled color down and then blended everything out following the direction of the fur and shapes/positions of the darker areas.  

Normally I work the eyes first but in this case I left that for later, along with the nose.  The mouth was one of the last things I put in before finalizing with more shading and details.  I added the tag last.