Rocky

[Enug]

A family friend asked me to paint a picture of her mother's dog for printing on canvas as a Christmas gift to her mother. This is the result. I used mainly airbrush with an oil custom brush for the decking.

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Reference
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[D Akey]

Great! I'm hearing the Rocky song, "Feelin' strong now. . ."

Love how you tapped into the fur overlap with those hairs. Works great and adds a whole lot of feel to the fur.

Rocky looks like quite a chap -- one who understands relaxing, but ready to spring into action at a moment's notice. He's got his eye on something with potential!

Great portrait, June. And it just goes to show that a terrific source image can really make a painting.

Oh, one little recommendation -- re: the wood texture, it might work were it's done as a transparent layer where you could indicate the wood grain without it being so black and outlined. Right now it feels really rough. So you could lay down the base brown, and then on another duplicated layer you can apply your filter and reduce the opacity of it down to where it smooths out the plane of the wood slats. Just a thought.

:cool::cool::cool::cool::cool:

[Enug]

That's a great idea DA - I will try it straight away before I give her the files.

Actually, it was another ref photo that this friend preferred so after I had finished that one, I painted just Rocky's head because I loved the personality shining thru. When I showed her this painting she changed her mind and asked if I could add the rest of his body as this was now the painting she wanted.

[hanzz]

Really great painting. Love the feel of it. You want to pet the dog right away..