This unique pet portrait features a brown and white tricolor dog named Luke on a grassy background. It was painted with acrylic paints on a 12″ x 16″ stretched canvas, and was finished on February 23, 2022. The background is a gradient of blue, teal, and green, with more grass detail at the bottom of the canvas. This is another pet portrait of mine that features natural colors with a vibrant colored background. This was a gift for a friend of the customer who preferred natural colors. Although I am known for my wild rainbow colors, I am okay with deviating every now and then and doing a natural colored painting! It is a good challenge for me to match the colors of the fur rather than just the light and dark tones. Working with a more limited palette presents its own challenges and every painting is a learning experience.
Progress of the Painting
Above you can see the progress photos of the painting. I take multiple photos of the painting in various stages of progress and share them with the owner or customer frequently. I know it can be interesting for many to watch the portrait unfold, and also like to be involved in the process. On the far left, you can see the first stage. I start with the background first. Then in the second stage, I block in the main colors and features, and also focus on the eyes. This is the underpainting stage. I then go over this with many layers of paint to bring out highlights, shadows, and details, which can be seen in the third painting. The the last stage of this painting was doing the grass details, which, like fur, was created with many many layers of various colors.
The natural color scheme works best for animals that have brown fur, since it is harder to interpret brown in a colorful palette. Painting black dogs and cats in a colorful style usually involves blues and purples, which can easily be interpreted as “black”, since many black animals have hints of blues and purples in their fur already. White animals and white areas of pet fur can also similarly be represented by cool tones. For tan and beige colored pets, warm tones such as oranges and yellows can be used. And many pets have bright orange or red fur already, such as an orange cat, or a red dog, so those colors just enhance what is already there. Yellow dogs like golden retrievers can be painted with lots of light oranges and yellows too. Gray colored animals can be represented by lighter blues and violets, taking care to not make the values too dark. Brown is a warm tone, so the closest color would be orange; however, if I painted a brown dog using mostly oranges, it would not really appear brown. However, a clever mix of brown with some brighter colors would do the trick.
If you enjoy this unique portrait of Luke and want one of your own pet, please visit my Pet Portraits Information Page. I create unique portraits of any pet in acrylic paints on canvas. I can paint any animal, including cats, dogs, farm animals, reptiles, and pocket pets. I have many styles to choose from, including colorful, psychedelic, and natural, and several background styles, or you are welcome to come up with your own!
Luke’s portrait is hanging in his owner’s home, but the artwork is available as a fine art print in my Online Print Store. There one can choose from many different types of prints and wall art, such as paper, canvas, metal, acrylic, wood and even tapestries. There are hundreds of options for framing, and it comes in many size choices. There are also other products to choose from, such as throw pillows, fleece blankets, coffee mugs, shirts, phone cases, tote bags, jigsaw puzzles and much more. This can be a great opportunity for you to own a product with a dog that looks like yours!
