Acrylic Dog Portrait: A million tiny hairs

Over the past month or so I've been working on an acrylic portrait of a dog, picking it up on and off when I've had time.

It's finally finished and will be given as a surprise for its new owner on their birthday this week.

The background was the first thing I painted, leaving the dog shape in the middle white. In hindsight I should have painted the whole background, then sketched out the dog afterwards.

I ended up having to repaint the background because there were some little white gaps around the dog and I couldn't match the colour perfectly to fill them in.

Anyway, we learn from our mistakes and, even though it took a little longer than it probably should have, I'm pleased with the outcome.

For anyone interested, I used Daler Rowney acrylic paints on acid free 240g acrylic paper. It's got a nice texture which is visible in the photo above.

While working on this pet portrait I did a bit of research into acrylic techniques and discovered the wonderful artist Marcel Witte. For my next project I'm going to try his technique of painting the background and blocking all shapes out first.

To deliver the painting, Sam and I took a trip to South Devon this weekend. It was a great chance to meet up with all our friends and we even got out on the water on Saturday in a friend's boat.

I was disappointed not to have brought my wetsuit as the guys were wakeboarding and it looked like so much fun!

Here are a couple of snaps from the wakeboarding session near Torquay.

Don't forget to follow me on Facebook if you haven't already! Ciao for now :)

I'm sharing this post on the following blogs:  Handmade Harbour, Paint Party Friday Manon Popje's Illustrations, Nifty Thrifty Things, Be Different Act Normal and Tatertots and Jello.

Enjoying the sunny weather on Teignmouth seafront, Devon

Last Sunday was a beautiful, crisp day so we went for a walk along the seafront at Teignmouth in south Devon. Despite the chilly temperature, the sea was really blue, although you still wouldn't have got me in there!

It was high tide so we stopped to watch the waves crashing on the slipway. Every few minutes there was a big one which I tried to capture on camera - easier said than done!

I took a photo of these rusty poles because I thought they'd be interesting to draw, perhaps on brown paper. It's so much more interesting to sketch something with a bit of texture!

How to draw water continued...

Staying with the watery theme, I finished this pencil drawing of water that I wrote about in my last blog post: How to draw water. I used a 2B and B pencil for the shading and sharpened it up at the end with a slightly harder one.

I'm extremely pleased with the way it's turned out. Not sure I'll be doing another one any time soon though as for such a small drawing it took a very long time to complete!

I'll be back soon with some drawings inspired by an artist I found on Pinterest (inspiration Mecca!). If you'd like to see them, follow my blog :)

Also, a little plea to those who use Facebook! My art page is currently on 92 likes so it would be great if you could like and share to push me over the 100 mark! Thank you :D

Today I'm sharing this post on the following lovely blogs: Handmade Harbour, Blue Chair Diary Illustrations, Lamb Around, Cornerstone Confessions and Manon Popje's Illustrations.