Hooray for a Shih Tzu

I was asked to paint a custom pet portrait of Quinn wearing his Mississippi State sweater. It’s always fun to do something a bit different, and I knew trying to get the sweater’s texture and lettering would be a good challenge. I started by creating a digital sketch of Quinn for client approval. Then I transfered the sketch to a panel painted with a grayish blue as an under layer.

My next step was to start the actual painting by laying in the very darkest darks and lightest lights. This helps set up the tones in relation to the background color and build up the volume of the forms.