She's So Shar...Pei

If you are new and stumbled onto this blog, welcome. My name is Robert Phelps and I am an artist living in St. Petersburg, FL. I do a large variety of work which you can see on my website.

This was a unique challenge for my #petportrait skills. Lucy is my first ever #Sharpei that I've ever painted. She was a memorial portrait so I took it pretty seriously.I worked from a variety of reference photos but ultimately settled on this pose of her by the couch. I close cropped it to get the details more in focus.

The client preferred a square composition and I really liked how the pose showed the full body. In retrospect, although I really like how this #dogportrait turned out, I would like to have used the photo with the flowers as it has a bit more charm. Still, the client was very happy with the finished product. 

The painting process was interesting in that I had intended to use muted/conservative tones throughout. I started off that way but kept getting the "call" to use more vibrant hues. As per usual, I just followed my intuition and watched the painting unfold. I'm happy with the rainbow of tones and now see how appropriate they were.