#9- Pet Portrait

When I was assigned to complete a pet portrait, I was super excited. Pets have so much expression in their faces and just in their being. My dog has a very strong personality and I knew that I wanted to portray that in my painting. I have really enjoyed working with oil paints this semester and thought that I wold try them again. I began by attempting to take a photograph of my dog which was no easy task. He likes to move a lot and he doesn't like looking at the camera. I took hundreds of photos trying to get the perfect photo that I thought captured his personality the best. I finally settled on this one because I thought that the texture and composition was very interesting.

I have done a few oil paintings on canvas already and I wanted to try something different. I have had a wood board sitting around for a while now but I didn't know what I wanted to use it for. I thought that it would add to the already texture-filled image. I sketched out my dog on the board and began placing in colors. But soon, I got really bored with all the basic shades of brown and white of the fur. I started putting in a little magenta and a little blue and then just kept going. I have to say, this piece is probably my favorite thing I have ever worked on. The process of creating it was really fun that I didn't even think about what the final piece would look like, I just kept painting.

I have never really done anything like this before so I did run into some roadblocks along the way. I had some issues getting the right colors that coordinated together well. Also, I struggled a little bit with getting the proportions right on the face of the dog. I have spent so much time getting the proportions of the human face correctly, so it took a while to get an animal's features proportionate.

Overall, I am really happy with how this piece turned out. It is unlike anything I have ever done before and is unique from any piece I have ever seen. I am happy that I decided to put my own twist on the photo and not copy it exactly. I think that the piece truly captures his personality and expressions. I enjoyed creating this a lot and am proud of what I was able to accomplish.