Lauren's Petraits (And Sportraits, and Art of All Sortraits)

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This is where you can find all the detailed writeups for all my artwork, as well as the occassional random post.

Pet Portrait: Paxton the Pug

Paxton the Pug (Colored Pencil - 2012)

Meet Paxton, a pug who is way more generous than my dogs in his willingness to stand for quite the adorable photo while wearing this flamboyant Mardi Gras ribbon collar.  Had it been my two girls, it would most likely be shredded at their feet.

Paper Used: Strathmore Premium Recycled Drawing Paper (400 Series) cut to 11x14".

Colored Pencils Used:

Black Grape - PC996
Violet - PC932
Parma Violet - PC1008
Dark Green - PC908
Grass Green - PC909
Aquamarine - PC905
Apple Green - PC912
Chartreuse - PC989
Dark Umber - PC947
Light Umber - PC941
Metallic Gold - PC950
Ginger Root - PC1084
Cream - PC914
Black - PC935
Cool Grey 90% - PC1067
Cool Grey 70% - PC1065
Cool Grey 50% - PC1063
Cool Grey 30% - PC1061
White - PC938

Total Time Spent: 34 hours

The majority of my 11x14" pet portraits take around 20 hours to complete, give or take a few hours, so it's safe to say that a lot of extra time went into that collar.  In addition to typical blending to create variations in lights and darks in the opaque ribbons, I also had to figure out a way to create layers within the ribbons since there were numerous pieces that were more transparent than the other pieces, allowing for the colors below to come through.  I couldn't allow for the blending that occurs when typically using one color above another, so putting far less pressure behind the pencil left a layered appearance in which it was clear that the two colors slightly mixing were from two or three separate ribbons.

Something else I had to work with was the gold in the collar.  The Metallic Gold pencils are a darker gold than what was required, and simply using white to create a lighter color isn't really an option because it somehow remains dark, but loses the gold tint.  In order to create these sections of the collar, I had to put down a light layer of cream before adding a light layer of the gold on top.  That way a hint of the shininess is still there, but the darkness of the metallic gold is weakened greatly.

Until next time! Lauren H.
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Artwork, Pet PortraitsLauren HeimbaughArtwork, Colored Pencils, Dogs, Drawing, Pet Portrait, Pets, Portrait, Prismacolor, Prismacolor Colored Pencils, Pug, Strathmore1 Comment