Sneak peaks behind Sam's Portrait

I'm currently working on 3 small acrylic paintings that are to remain anonymous for an auction, so I can't share them with you. 

Instead, I decided to show you a couple of sneak peaks behind the scene with Sam's portrait, the gorgeous English Cocker Spaniel.

So hear we have his sweet, smiling original photo I took the day of his photo shoot.



Next, I like to crop it and under image - mode, and change it to gray-scale

in Photoshop Elements.

Then under Filter- Artistic, I choose Cutout.  I make sure it's the highest number of levels (8), Lowest Edge Simplicity (0) and the Highest Edge Fidelity (3).

This gives me the above image that averages out the 8 levels of values and creates average-value shapes.  I found out this little trick a couple of years ago which makes painting that much simpler.  Of course, I rely on my eye and choose to change some values for composition, so this is more of a tool than a hard and fast rule.

Here is my messy easel, showing an assortment of pastels I'm using and pastel pencils.  I also make a color copy enlargement of my photo and am faithful to it for drawing and proportions....I'll play with color tho and and change backgrounds. 

The paper for Sam is UArt Acid Free Sanded Pastel Boards -  400 grade.  It also comes in 500, 600 and 800 grades.  (click on the link to learn more)

I really like the 400 grade...is very much like Wallis Paper and worked well with Sam.

  

Here is a shot of me starting work on his left side.  When I'm working, I just pick out the colors I want and keep them handy on the tray underneath so I can repeat the same colors for unity.



Here's the final "Sam" that you originally saw in the last post.  I hope you enjoyed my process and might try some of the papers here.

Thanks for following my blog :)

Kim