Poppy - Black Labrador Work In Progress
This is a painting I am working on in between commissions for my own portfolio - it might seem a bit strange but I have very few pieces of my own artwork to show clients because most of the work I have done over the past few years have been sold. Which of course is a good thing, but I would also like to enter a few competitions and can’t do that when I keep selling everything, so hopefully over the next few months I can add a few pieces (at least six) to my own collection here and there.
I’d also like to experiment with a much looser style and try out some more landscapes if I get a chance. To help keep me motivated to achieve these goals, I’ve joined in the Australian Art Forum’s Winter Challenge with will run from 1 May to 1 September.
It seems that most artists that paint with a high degree of realism tend to produce pet portraits with traditional landscapes or portrait backgrounds, and those artists that paint in a bold contemporary style usually don’t paint in highly realistic detail. I would like to pursue a slightly different direction with some of my artwork, although I don’t think I will ever move away from my realistic and ‘up close and personal’ style, I want to explore combining that with modern contemporary backgrounds. Bright bold background colours and landscapes full of beautiful saturated colours that border on the real/surreal/hyper real. Will it work? Can it be done? LOL, who knows, but I am sure it will be fun to find out:)
This one is likely to take a while to complete as I am fitting it in between commissions. ‘Poppy’ is 16″x20″ on gallery wrapped canvas. This is a big experiment as acrylic is a new medium that I am teaching myself how to use. The thing I love about being self-taught is that you can try new and unusual techniques because no ‘expert’ teacher has deemed there is a right way and a wrong way.
Personally, I think as long as you use good quality artist’s materials, you can’t go far wrong by simply experimenting to find out what works (or dosn’t) for you:)
So here goes my experiment with ‘Poppy’. I’ve deliberately chosen to offset the black labrador to the right hand side of the canvas, and to use a landscape orientation rather than portrait. My vision for this one is to have the dog sitting a a field of red poppies. So I have to learn how to paint flowers as well, which will be fun:)
The first image shows my sketch of the Poppy, and the beginning of the background field, which has been created with many thin glaze layers of paint which has taken about 3.5 hours so far.
The next progress shot shows how I have started to block in the main shapes (shadows and highlights) in the underpainting using various dilutions of paynes grey.
More work on the underpainting and additional glazes on the background.
Stay tuned for the next updates on Poppy!
Michelle
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