Someone to Watch over Me - a Beautiful Process

Meet King. A good friend of mine asked if I could do a painting for a friend of hers. The woman who had King had been through  some rough times, and Lynn wanted to give this to her as a loving memory of King. King's owner wants to hang the painting in her newborn daughter's bedroom as her guardian angel, hence the name of the painting.

My drawing

I wanted to start with a color study, as I was going outside my usual territory. The colors and mood were to be light, and I do have a penchant for the dark and dramatic. I started with a wet in wet all-over wash using quin. rose, quin. burnt orange and cobalt blue. I dried that, and then mixed a blue-grey for his coat color and applied that w/w.

A bit more w/w with a warm and cool grey.

The eyes and nose, again w/w, using orange, pink and indanthrone.

More work on eyes and nose.

This morning I had a good idea for the background. I wanted to use a "lost and found" technique so King would seem to emerge from the paper. I scrumbled some orange, pink and cobalt blue, keeping the warmer colors up at his head. I'm not sure if I am finished yet, but I must admit I really like how the painting looks. I wish all my paintings came onto the board this easily - mind you, I did spend weeks thinking about it and planning.

The original drawing is 15 x 11 inches, and the color study is 11 x 7 inches. I wonder if I can create the larger painting as well as the color study???

Thank you so much for dropping by!!