Yorkshire Terrier portrait commission

While at a local pub with my friends, I met a woman and started chatting.  Before long she had her iphone out, showing me photos of her recently passed Yorkshire Terrier named Bailey.  As tears filled her eyes she asked if I could possibly paint him from a not so very good photograph.

This is often an artist's nightmare...but I am a pushover for someone who really wants my art and is heartfelt about loving their pet.  So I said yes, and she e-mailed me the photo.  I struggled with enlarging it many times in photoshop, of course lessening the quality of the photo.  Various photos had different values and colors in the fur...so I did a composite.

The dog sat on a white blanket that did nothing for the composition.  I thought with all the warm golds, a purple background would help.  So I took out a 9x12" ampersand pastel board and sketched him out on it, giving the purple an underpainting with pastel washed with alcohol.

"Bailey", pastel, 9x12" ©Kim Werfel

Normally, I like to meet the pets....(if I can) and take my own photos.  But I realized that the owners are more interested in having something to remember their 4-legged friend, rather than nothing.  So sometimes a work of art is more of a work of "heart".

This was shipped to Ohio.  So now my work is finding homes in new States.  I find that kinda exciting too.

Thanks for following my blog and have a great day!

Kim

http://www.kimwerfel.com