Roxie – Bloggers Dogs {and Kitties}

This is Roxie, a cute l’il pug. This was a special portrait for me to paint. Of course, all of them are special but I’ve met Roxie in real life, unlike most of the pets I draw or paint.

It was on an evening in May, two years ago. Roxie’s mama was driving cross country and made a stop in Sacramento so we could meet in person, having been online friends for a number of years. Amy and I had a wonderful dinner then walked back to her motel room and sat outside with her pugs, Roxie and Nellie.

I will always remember that night, not just because I spent a peaceful evening with a dear friend, but because the next day my life was forever changed when my husband went into the hospital.

Sadly, only a few weeks after that night, Nellie passed away too. I painted Nellie’s portrait and shipped it to Amy in hopes it might ease some of the pain of such a loss. Not that a simple painting can do that, but the memories when looking at it might be able to.

Fast forward two years . . . life goes on, right? A few weeks ago, in an online conversation with some friends, Amy suggested I sell pet portraits. Actually she said something more like “You NEED to sell them”.

There are very few people I ‘look up to’ anymore, but Amy is definitely in that small group. I mean, think about writing an entire blog, day in and day out, about decoupage glue. And not only making the blog a huge success, along with two other blogs, but also writing books and creating product lines too! Not to mention, she’s honest and candid (in a good way) and helps bloggers out constantly.

Obviously, I took her message to heart and haven’t looked back and today I’m thrilled to show you how I painted little Roxie, the pug. Or ‘piggie’, as Amy calls pugs – which absolutely makes me giggle because they are like little piggies, aren’t they?

 

I like to start with a sketch on paper for animals. It’s all about getting the eyes-to-nose relationship right. I probably should spend some time watching Youtube videos but . . . I haven’t. Oh well.

The background is a mixture of Aqua and Wedding Cake white. Oh, I should mention that I used all Plaid paints on Roxie, only because Mod Podge is made by Plaid and Amy used to work for Plaid and the stencils she created are made by Plaid and I happen to love their products too. Or I wouldn’t use them.

With the background completely dry, I transferred the line art onto the canvas.

I’m still experimenting with different methods for the pet portraits. Colored pencils, watercolors, acrylics, or a combination of them. At first, I thought I’d block in the background colors with acrylics and come back with colored pencils over the top.

For Roxie’s coat I used a combination of Bamboo, Tapioca and Wedding Cake, with Bamboo being the shading color too.

I get a lot of comments on the eyes in my animal paintings.

They’re really not as hard as they look. I took a ton of photos of each step and I’ll do a separate tutorial for painting dogs’ eyes in a bit. It’s kinda fun to see how they go from an empty hole to near lifelike.

At least I think so.

For the majority of the grey areas I used a color called Cast Shadow. It’s not as dark as Wrought Iron and it has a smidge of brown to it so it’s a little softer, making it perfect for pug paintings.

For the darker shading I did use Wrought Iron, a charcoal grey-almost black-but not quite.

I had to get her little pink tongue in there. Every photo I see of Roxie has that tongue sticking out!

 

For her “collar” (furry neck) I underpainted with Cast Shadow and a little Bamboo. On an animal with a light coat you still have to have shading somewhere otherwise you can’t get the look of fur. I like using craft paints – as opposed to tube acrylics – because there isn’t 100% opaque coverage in one coat. Meaning, I can underpaint with a shading color, come back with a lighter color on top and still have the shading evident.

It’s just the way I do it. Not the “right” way, just “a” way.

Okay, so I kinda ditched the whole colored pencil idea because I was so into the paints on my palette. Do you see how the fur is lighter now but still has some direction from the underpainting?

Also, I can only do the wispies with paint. I’ve tried with pencils, and I know other artists do them with pencils, but I use a round or fine tip brush and paint for the whiskers and little muzzle and chin hairs.

Awww.

And there’s Roxie!

Ok, so the whole blending-the-dog-into-the-background part? We’re not gonna talk about that here. In fact, the only way I could show how to do that is on a video and it’d have to be without sound because there just might be some naughty words uttered here and there.

Eventually I get it done. Let’s just say, it’s not as easy as it looks.

I think Roxie is the third pet portrait I’ve done (recently) for a blogger? Lola is Aunt Peaches kitty.  Buddy is Brittany’s Pretty Handy Dog. I might be missing someone. Anyway, I thought it’d start a series, Bloggers Dogs {and Kitties}, just for fun. I’ve met many bloggers on Instagram thru their dogs since I’m such an animal lover and I’d really rather see a doggie than a pretty living room. I would!

I’m not exactly sure what I’ll do with the series yet because I don’t know how many blogger pet portraits I’ll wind up doing. Right now I have four commissioned and we’re just getting started here! I thought it might be fun to do a mix ‘n match game – match the blogger to the pet – or something like that. We’ll see. If you’re a blogger and you’d like your furbaby painted, email me so we can chat!

Of course, I’m happy to paint nonblogger dogs and kitties too! (and birds and horses and bunnies and . . . ) If you haven’t been by my Etsy shop, I hope you’ll drop by. And I also started Just Paint It Pets on Facebook. Yay!

#Ilovemyjob

Colleen

about Colleen