Animal and Wildlife Art Lessons

"Stanley"

By Leslie Pease
www.lesliepease.com

Click images for larger view

This is the reference photo of Stanley. Although the quality isn't good, it's still a strong composition and the colors are fairly accurate. Most importantly, it's the only photo of Stanely!

 

 

 

STEP ONE

In step one, I covered the entire canvas with burnt sienna, to take away some of the canvas' brightness. Used, is the second to last of the dark colors in the palette and makes a good first layer.

 

 

STEP TWO

The background color has been suggested. This helps me to start to adjust the colors, in my palette; see which colors work best, with each others. Since I usually use a limited palette of the same colors, it's not hard for me to get this stage finished.

 

STEP THREE

In this step, I am adding some of the darker colors, of the dog. By doing this early on, I can obtain a better sense of depth and the balance of the composition.

 

 

STEP FOUR

(Unfortunately, this is a very bad photo, because it makes the painting look more golden-yellow, than it really is. But, in the interest of keeping a decent photo-log, I didn't want to continue without photographing, first. That meant depending on normal indoor lighting. Sorry.)

After quite a drying period, I noticed that the painting looked a bit top heavy, compositionally. The nose seemed too centered and the eye had trouble traveling past such a large mass. To help eliminate this, the bottom right corner was made a bit darker.

As for the dog, I also noticed that the tip of the nose was a bit too small. Did a little refining to the flat ear and worked on Stanley's overall coat.

Visit Leslie's Site: http://www.lesliepease.com

1 | 2 | 3