Pet Portrait: The Nouss Six
Look at all those smiling faces! And let them distract you from the poorer quality of this photo since the portrait was a bit too large to take in and have scanned like I usually do.
A few years back I did a larger portrait of three Cavalier King Charles Spaniels together and I joked to myself “never again” because it had just been so overwhelming. Welp, I am nothing if not someone who lies to themselves because I have now done a portrait with six dogs. It may not be double the size when counting square inches (though it is larger), but double the dogs still computes to double the hours taken - granted the grass is definitely responsible for a lot of the time taken. So now I am going to make a new promise to myself: if ever someone makes a request of this size again, I will seriously invest in learning how to use pastel pencils instead of my tried and true Prismacolor colored pencils. For my own sanity.
Original Photos:
In order to get these 6 photos to work together in one composition, I had some Frankensteining to do:
I had to correct the warped proportions that resulted from some of these references being photos of photos instead of scanned/digital pics (such as with Annie’s head looking further away (and thus smaller) than the rest of her body, to the back half of Tucker’s body looking much longer than his front half and head.
In addition to that I also had to put the heads of Charlie and Sandy on the body’s of some pics I found online - Charlie simply because the angle he was sitting at wasn’t correct in comparison to the angle of the rest of the dogs, and Sandy had to be switched from lying down to sitting.
The angle of the light source had to be switched for some of the dogs - in the reference photo for Charlie the light is coming in from a bit behind and his right, where it had to be moved over to his left, and Bentley’s light source was causing harsher shadows than the rest (as he was backlit from above my artificial lights).
Paper Used: Strathmore Recycled Drawing Paper (400 Series) cut to 24x30”
Prismacolor Colored Pencils Used:
White - PC938 10% Cool Grey - PC1059 20% Cool Grey - PC1060 30% Cool Grey - PC1061 50% Cool Grey - PC1063 70% Cool Grey - PC1065 90% Cool Grey - PC1067 10% Warm Grey - PC1050 20% Warm Grey - PC1051 30% Warm Grey - PC1052 50% Warm Grey - PC1054 70% Warm Grey - PC1056 90% Warm Grey - PC1058 10% French Grey - PC1068 20% French Grey - PC1069 30% French Grey - PC1070 50% French Grey - PC1072 70% French Grey - PC1074 90% French Grey - PC1076 Black - PC935
Dark Umber - PC947 Dark Brown - PC946 Terra Cotta - PC944 Sienna Brown - PC945 Light Umber - PC941 Burnt Ochre - PC943 Henna - PC1031 Clay Rose - PC1017 Rosy Beige - PC1019 Sienna Beige - PC1080 Ginger Root - PC1084 Peach Beige - PC1085 Putty Beige - 1083 Sand - PC940 Eggshell - PC140 Cream - PC914
Grey Green Light - PC289 Pale Sage - PC1089 Apple Green - PC912 Olive Green - PC911 Dark Green - PC908 Cloud Blue - PC1023 Powder Blue - PC1087 Deco Pink - PC1014 Pink Rose - PC1018 Blush Pink - PC928 Nectar - PC1092 Greyed Lavender - PC1026 Hot Pink - PC993 Pink - PC929 Poppy Red - PC922 Magenta - PC930 Crimson Lake - PC925 Crimson Red - PC924 Tuscan Red - PC937
Pastels Used:
Faber-Castell Pitt Pastel Pencils:
Black - 199 Cobalt Blue - 143 Permanent Green Olive - 167 Earth Green Yellowish - 168 May Green - 170 Burnt Umber - 280 Raw Umber - 180 Brown Ochre - 182 Cream - 102 Ivory - 103
Rembrandt Soft Pastel:
White 100.5 Ultramarine Deep 506.9
Progress Pics: These probably aren’t as exciting to see when you can just look at the finished portrait above (I’m considering a new way to do these involving showing the blocking out of base colors before all the fur is built up on top — might be a bit more interesting, at the very least), but if you’d like to see these progress pics posted throughout the days as the progress is actually being made then feel free to check me out over on instagram here.
Background Options:
Time Spent: 420 hours and 10 minutes
Up Next: Thanks to the time that went into drawing this family of six, I’ve amassed a collection of commissions already lined up to take me into the new year, starting with Daphne the Boston Terrier.
Until next time!
Lauren H.