Buster, 16 x 16 inch oil on linen.
© 2013 Kathleen Coy
Fresh off the easel is a commissioned painting of an Australian Kelpie named Buster. Would you look at that face! I fell in love with this pose, and those gorgeous eyes that stare right into your soul. It felt great to be painting large after a year of small paintings. (By the way, the year long project is over, so I'll be updating this blog much more frequently now.) I've included some photos of the process below.
First I did a small value study, then I sketched Buster with vine charcoal on the 16 x 16" oil-primed linen panel. I like vine or willow charcoal because it erases off the canvas with the touch of your finger, so you can fiddle with the drawing until it's right.
After I'm satisfied with the charcoal drawing, I go over it with a sanguine Faber-Castell Pitt artist pen (a little trick I learned from Terry Moore Strickland's blog), otherwise it will dissolve when I start laying in the first washes of thin paint:
Now to start on those eyes...
More progress:
And once again, the finished painting:
Next up is a portrait of Buster's black lab sister, River. Stay tuned...
