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Wednesday, October 8, 2014

Mr. T: part 1

Mr. T is the family dog of my bestest friend since third grade, Nana. That makes 24 years...super long time.

Anyways, Nana's family is going through a rough spot, and Nana thought it would be nice to paint Mr. T for her mom. Originally the painting was going to be on an oval canvas, which I did find, however, the quality of said canvas was of a dubious nature. Aka, it was questionably cheap. I bought it anyway, but it isn't going to work out. I wasn't sure what to do, until I discovered an artist, Jen Lobo, the other day. See what I mean:

I love these works. I am not in love with all of her works, which is totally to be expected, but these are exceptional. I super want to see if I can paint something similar. I can't get over how much I love these, if I had the money I would buy one, hands down.  

I paint on board, which does not come round, and thought that following Jen's lead would be a nice solution. Here is Mr. T after about two hours of drawing: 


This is a composite of pieces of Mr. T and another dog that was sitting in the position I wanted. I think I got Mr. T in there pretty well. There is, however, something wrong with the right side of his face. I need to figure out which angle is off. I think I will hold off on painting him until I can figure it out. Mr. T, as you can see, will also have a bow tie. It will be painted in Nana's scottish family crest plaid thing. This morning, I even found a photo of a dog wearing a plaid bow tie, which will be a nice reference. 

Here are a couple prep sketches I did a while ago of Scotties: 

As you can see Mr. T is kind of right between these two, except there is one thing that Mr. T has that these two dogs do not, a very distinct tuft of hair between his eyes, right before his muzzle hair begins to separate. I super love this about him, and think if I get that tuft right, Mr. T will shine through.  



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