Finished Havanese Portrait — Remembering Bandit

I was asked to paint Bandit as a memorial to “the best little guy ever”. His sweet smile and his braids were especially important to his pet parent.

Sometimes as I’m painting I get carried away and forget to take photos during the various stages. This was one of those times. So tada–here is the finished painting.

In working on this portrait of Bandit–I wanted to make sure we noticed Bandit’s eyes under the shadowed overhang of his fur. So I had to play a bit with enhancing that area from the original photo. Opening up a photo in order to see enough detail in the eyes is pretty common for my paintings. It’s tough to get a photo that shows everything clearly. So sometimes I need to do tone manipulation and something merge multiple photos into one image.

Makes me glad I spent my first 25 years as a graphic designer as those Phototshop skills come in handy. But truthfully–painting is ALOT more fun.

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