I decided that I wanted to paint a portrait of our beloved family dog that passed away. Painting from life is always preferable, but not always possible. So, to start out, I had to gather various reference photos. None of the photos I found was exactly what I had in mind, so I mashed a few of them together (this is a pretty common thing to do in illustration). After a neutral background wash, a little designing, and a rough sketch, I began painting. My conclusions are – almost never use flowers as background (I just got too lazy to change it once I saw how corny it looked), and a canvas surface is much harder to get detail on than a wood panel. I’m going to stick to the freedom of gessoed wood panels from now on I think.
If anyone knows anyone who would like a portrait done of a beloved pet, please contact me. I would love to do some more!
The Art of Brooke Malia Mann 