Evolution of an artwork.

Last Tuesday I wrote about the study of a dog that I had worked on in class.  You will notice that I continued to paint by drawing lines either with pencil or brush and then sort of painting between them.  During last Thursday's class, Don demonstrated a different way of approaching a painting and today I attempted this approach to continue the dog study as a painting.  Just a warning, the post if pretty photo heavy.

With no preliminary drawing and a large, flat hogs bristle brush I began to block in a slurry of colour using the broad, flat side of the brush.  I made large blocks of colour to begin to create form.

I continued in this manner working over past brush strokes and incorporating more colour.  Do you see how dark it looks on the left side of the dog?  I've also painted these in cool colours to make this side recede.  I will paint this area much DARKER before the end.  Trust me....it will work out.

I brought white in too early and as it mixed with the dark shadows I lost the shape of the face and also the image became flat and less three dimensional.

Bringing in more colour and warming the light side (right) of the dog using burn sienna mixed with whatever lights I had on my palette (white plus.....?). I also noticed that in the rough rendering of the image I had the little puppy tilted too far to the right and needed to make some adjustments in the positioning of the facial features.

Don then came in and helped me to reinstate the darker tones. Can you believe how dark they are?  Notice the cool colours in the shadow side of the dog and the warm colours in the light.

I continued to intensify the shadows and alter the shape of the image.  I began to lighted the background on the left and this made the shadow side appear darker also.

More work on the background further lightening the left side of the picture and pushing darks into the right hand side to intensify the light side of the dog.  I have also manipulated the paint to give the dog's head a more realistic shape.  The eyes at this stage are just blobs and will be sharpened up at a later stage of this process. 

Painting in this way required a huge head shift for me and I did struggle for the first 45 minutes or so as I battled my desire to 'draw' with the paintbrush rather than paint.  I am so pleased that I have persevered as I felt my confidence grow and my technique improve immensely by the end of the session.  I obviously still have more to do and can't wait to get to the stage where it is finished and ready to share with you.

I really hope you have enjoyed this insight into this particular artwork and into this particular stage of my journey.