Remembering Ruby, a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel

Some dogs just have the sweetest faces. And that is certainly true of Ruby, a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel who has passed on. I was contacted by a friend of Ruby’s guardian, who wished to give a pet portrait to her as a memorial.

Many of the paintings I do are memorial ones, and I have a soft spot for them. They can be harder than a painting of a living pet–because the photos you have are all there are. So often it means I work from reference material that is blurred or badly lit. But I try to make it work anyway. I know how hard it is to lose a loved pet too.

This is my initial sketch superimposed on a digital color layout of Ruby.