This latest challenge combines four different golden retrievers, taken on different occasions, with different light sources, into one big pastel portrait. To get the composition I scanned in all the photos and rearranged them in different poses and changed some of their heads for their favoured expressions. After narrowing down the arrangements to just a few that really worked, I let the owners choose their preferred composition and set about sketching the basic form onto Fisher 400 Pastel paper. This has a greater degree of tooth than most papers so I chose it because I know I can keep layering up the pastel and covering any mistakes! You can also paint the surface with watercolour or acrylic paint before you start as it only comes in two shades of cream. I decided not to do this to keep the hues quite subtle and I can always add colour into the background later on in the process. Once the dogs were roughly outlined, I marked in the darker shapes and features with a dark brown pencil to 'key-in' the main features. Then I blocked in some mid tones followed by highlights in white Conte pastels. Next I focused on Robbie's face to try to capture his character early on followed by Charlie's, using pencils to get the detail. I have decided not to blend any of the layers on this portrait but to keep the marks fresh and layer them up but I need to work on the dogs as a whole as well as paint them individually. In order to make the dogs look like they belong together, when I use a colour I try to see where I see that colour on the other dogs so peach, yellow ochre, grey, orange, brown grey and even blues were sketched in. Bluebells were a late addition after the grass was painted, to draw them all together and many more layers of colour added to their coats in order to achieve depth. Finally, the dogs were compared together by the owners to adjust the dogs' coats colour and tone... et voila!
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