Getting back into art...starting with a red umbrella

So I already talked about my father in law in this post. He's an extremely talented person when it comes to building anything. He sees potential in any house...even if it needs a lot of work. So when Tim's mom asked me to paint a picture of him and his dog Jazz, I was excited...and nervous. I mean I love to paint but painting people is extremely overwhelming to me. I mean what if they don't like it? What if I don't make them look good? It's too much. But I decided to take on the challenge when she gave me this awesome picture of him and Jazz in a canoe. 

Doesn't this picture make you smile? They look so content. Jazz is extremely well trained. If it was a picture of our pup James, we would be in the water next to the canoe. That dog cannot sit still in a small boat. He rather be swimming.

 But I digress...back to the painting.

This canvas is an 11" X 17". If it was any bigger, it would take me forever.  I started slow. I sketched out him, Jazz and the canoe. Then I began with the background. The limbs were first, then I started to tackle to greenery. 

It was going slow but steady.



Finally I had the background done. I have to say that although I usually follow one or more images pretty closely, when it comes to the background, I don't get too caught up in following the photo exactly. If I did, I would be too obsessed with getting it perfect. 



I was determined to push off painting Eric himself so I moved on to the clothing and the pup. It's tough to paint a black dog but all you need to do is focus on the highlights rather than the shadows. At this point I was pretty excited by how it was turning out. 

At this point I just started to get in my usual painting groove. Once I got over painting his face and finishing the canoe, the rest pretty much flew by. Here is the final product.

I'm so excited by how it came out. Sorry about the bad quality picture but my hand was cramping pretty bad by the end. I think I love the water and Jazz the best.

 I was pretty excited to take something like this on that I feel like I need to keep going. February 17th is Drexel University's AAGA Annual Art Auction. It's this awesome event that I had the privilege of being a part of for the last 3 years. If you are in the Philadelphia area, come out to a great event where you can get original art by Philadelphia artists at a great price. Now I just need to figure out what I should paint?