Tag: Dog

Categories
Art Bay Area Parks Drawing Dreams Ink and watercolor wash Sketchbook Pages

Wordles and Pictures: Back to Journaling

Sketches of two dogs and a lady in a dress as illustrations for Wordle “Adopt” and “Frock”
Daily Dreams and Wordles Illustrated (Frock and Adopt)

When I started my blog, JanasJournal.com in 2006, it was an illustrated daily journal where I shared my world and my creative journeys through many different media. Now I’ve returned to my journaling roots and I’ve found inspiration from a surprising source: the daily Wordle puzzle, which I solve and then illustrate each day.

A view from my favorite park along the SF Bay, Point Isabel

While my journeys may have become more interior thanks to the pandemic, illustrating where my imagination and dreams take me keeps me entertained. But I’m also including sketches from places I go in real life, like Point Isabel above, a huge park along the SF Bay where dogs can run free, roll in the grass, splash in mud puddles and rinse off in the bay.

Wordle: Unlit and Dance

I’m using a page-a-day Hobonichi “Cousin” journal with weird, very thin, lightly-gridded paper along with fountain pens, drawing pens, watercolors and Tombow markers.

I will share more about the materials as I get the backlog of 3 months of journaling, dreams, Wordles and pictures posted.

Categories
Sketchbook Pages

Millie at Rest: Doggie Eyes and Noses

Millie at Rest, Sketched in Procreate on the iPad
Millie at Rest, Sketched in Procreate on the iPad

Sketching my dear little Millie, the Formosan Mountain Dog, a rescue from Taiwan and always a source of inspiration for drawing, painting, and getting out in nature every day for a walk.

Categories
Animals Oil Painting Painting

Dillon, a Dog Portrait Commission

Dog Portrait of Dillon, oil on Gessobord panel, 8x8"
Dog Portrait of Dillon, oil on Gessobord panel, 8×8″

Now that Christmas is over I can post this commissioned dog portrait oil painting. The person who requested it had previously been gifted this commissioned dog portrait and asked me to paint their friend’s dog Dillon to give to them as a gift. Below are the steps in the process.

Continue reading “Dillon, a Dog Portrait Commission”
Categories
Animals Gouache Sktchy

Ay Chihuahua! Creating Color from Black and White

Chihuahua: Make color from B&W: Gouache, 8x10"
Chihuahua: Make color from B&W: Gouache, 8×10″

When the Sktchy (see previous post) Weekend Art Extravaganza inspiration was to make a color sketch from a black and white photo I found the photo below and couldn’t resist putting a little color in this little guy’s life. I used to make fun of Chihuahuas, comparing them to rats (which can also actually make good pets if you don’t mind the smell). But after a couple of friends adopted chihuahua mixes, I have come to really appreciate their funny and quirky personalities.

B&W Photo Reference
B&W Photo Reference

Categories
Animals Oil Painting Painting Sketchbook Pages

Mika, Formosan Mountain Dog Portrait

Mika, a Formosan Mountain Dog portrait in oil paint on linen panel,, 10x8 in
Mika, a Formosan Mountain Dog portrait in oil paint on linen panel,, 10×8 in

This little cutie was a fun challenge to paint. Below are some steps along the way, including the reference photos that I joined and edited in Photoshop to simplify the background and combine the tops and bottoms of her ears. Her ears were too tall in my first sketch (done in gouache in my journal). I must have added extra length when I assembled the two photos in Photoshop so edited them down to life-size in the painting.

Mika’s owner was happy with the painting and noted that Mika, who is a playful goofball in real life, seems so dignified in the painting. That gave me the idea to ask owners to also provide videos of dogs I’m to paint in the future so I can get a better sense of their personalities. I tried to include some of the family’s garden in Mika’s portrait but I struggled with getting the spring flowers to behave in the background. I painted over them with sky, planning to try them again, but when I sent Mika’s owner a photo of the painting with the sky background, she liked it better that way and so did I.

Categories
Animals Drawing Oil Painting Painting Sketchbook Pages

Leo Take Two: Same Dog, Revised Painting

Leo, Dog Portrait, Take Two, oil on panel, 8x10
Leo, Dog Portrait, Take Two, oil on panel, 8×10

After I varnished Leo’s painting and was going to deliver it to the family that commissioned it, I realized I wasn’t satisfied with the background. I asked for and was granted permission to adjust it. It’s a good thing Leo’s people are very patient: I asked for an extra two weeks but then my dog Millie started having epileptic grand mal seizures and my cat Busby got sick and I was spending more of my time nursing animals than painting them.

Finally, after many visits to the emergency vet hospital, my family vet, and a veterinary neurologist (thank goodness for pet insurance) Millie has stabilized on her meds (no seizures in over a week), and Busby has sadly has passed on to Kitty Heaven. He was a beautiful cat and my remaining kitty Fiona misses him, even though he was a bit of a bully, like big brothers can sometimes be.

Back in the studio I explored how to rework the background. What bothered me was the way the it divided the painting in half vertically and how vague it was. With my realistic approach to the dog, it felt like the background needed more detail so I tried to suggest some of the actual greenery in Leo’s Northern California backyard (see photo below) and added some sky to add depth.

Below, copied from the previous post, are the reference photo and the work in progress before I got to the finished painting above.

Categories
Sketchbook Pages

Leo: A Dog Portrait in Oil and Gouache

Portrait of Leo, Formosan Mountain Dog, oil on panel, 8x10 in
Portrait of Leo, Formosan Mountain Dog, oil on panel, 8×10 in

Leo is the same breed as my pup Millie, a Formosan Mountain Dog (both rescued from the streets of Taiwan), except Leo has dark brindle fur which I found much more difficult to paint than Millie’s blonde fur, especially when working from a photo (at bottom of post) without much variation in light and shadow to help create dimension and volume on a surface that is already so varied and random.

Study for Leo Dog Portrait, gouache on paper, 8x10 in
Study for Leo Dog Portrait, gouache on paper, 8×10 in

Before starting the oil painting I did the above quick gouache study to send to the collector who commissioned the painting to give her a sense of what I was planning. I hadn’t decided yet whether to include their backyard.

Below are a few steps during the work in process and the original photo I worked from.

I got really interested in painting the ferns on the left in the photo but decided to simplify the background, which was attracting my eye more than the doggie. I changed Leo’s fur coloring a bit in the painting based on some additional photo references that showed the fur as being darker and warmer-colored than in this photo. I’m so glad Leo’s people are happy with the painting!