How I paint a combined portrait in soft pastels
I love painting humans and pets combined, so when i came across this sweet photo, I knew I wanted to paint it.
The biggest challenge was the blurry edges of the dog, his ears and where his body and ears fade into the background. I really had to search for something to distinguish between him and the dark background, otherwise he would have looked like a floating head resting on the baby. Also, the baby’s body didn’t have much differentiation in terms of value, so I took a bit of artistic licence with the colours to provide some variation.
Here is the gorgeous reference photo.
I started as usual with a line drawing, which I draw in a brown or other earth colour pastel pencil. The trickiest bit was the baby’s little face, and getting the mouth just right, and finding the edges of the dogs ears.
I loved the dark background in the photo, so I decided to keep it. It’s such a beautiful rich warm brown, so I used many layers of browns and English Red and white to create the mottled background.
I used soft pastels by Rembrandt and Art Spectrum on the background and the foreground.
I decided to start with the eye, simply because the ears were so blurry on the background that I felt better starting with a clear part.
I used a variety of pastel pencils for the whole dog and baby.
After completing both eyes, I started layering on the ears and side of the head. They will still get many layers, to avoid the giraffe patches:-)
His beautiful nose came next, as well as someof the darker markings in the white fur around his muzzle.
I worked on the rest of the face, but he still looks like a floating head at this point:-)
His head is not complete, but I never complete one section before movingon to the next. I just do enough to feel like I’m on the right track, then I move on to a different section.
It’s easier to tell if my values are correct if I can see the values across the whole image. The eyes might look dark enough, for instance, if everything around it is still white or pale grey, but once the dark fur goes in, then the dark around the eyes don’t look so dark anymore, so I have to go over them again.
The baby’s skin doesn’t have much variation, but if I look closely, I can see some vague bits of shadow on the left side of the baby’s back from the dog’s head. I might accentuate those. Obviously there’s that big shadow under the muzzle area, which is great for variation.
For the skin tones I use a variety of yellows and reds, and because it’s a baby, I use the lighter or softer versions. For the shadow areas and creases, I use a darker red and green. I blend between each layer with a soft white.
I follow the same process up to the head, using the same colours and blending between each layer with white.
The skin tones take many, many layers to buid up. There are probably at least 10 - 15 layers on the baby’s skin.
I used the same colours and process on the baby’s face, with the addition of Raw Umber, which I used in the hair and the eyelids. Raw umber is a fabulous colour…. It’s my go to colour when I’m not sure what to use in darker skin tone areas or things like dark blonde/light brown hair. I use Raw Umber like a crutch - I start out with it, and sometimes it’s just right, but usually I start with it, then slowly work my way toward a more appropriate colour. It just seems to work well under most skin and hair colours.
I worked on the foreground as I went. It’s just white and warm grey to create that soft, fluffy look.
I realised at this point that the dog’s head looks like a floating head, so I added some colour under his ear to show that his body extends that way, as well as the shadow above the baby’s bottom and little feet.
My daughter pointed out thathe looks a bit like a dead dog because his face was too grey. I agreed… not a good look:-)
I warmed up the dog’s face with additional layers of ochre, yellow, orange and burnt sienna. At this stage it’s more of a glaze, with very light application until I’m happy with the colour.
Now that he is warmed up, he looks a lot better. :-)