A Delightful Dog Portrait Painting with Popping Pink Glasses

Zann and Libby in Paws By Zann pet portrait art studio on Vancouver Island

Dog Portrait Art in Turquoise and Pink

Libby and her huge pink glasses were amazingly fun portrait to paint as a dog portrait! So much so, I want to share some of the process that went into this painting.

Pet Portrait of Libby in Red Glasses on Turquoise in Oil Paint

Big portraits are already awesome, because they have big visual impact. When you see them in person or on the wall it feels like BAM! Art. I love making that feeling happen.

Zann and Libby in Paws By Zann pet portrait art studio on Vancouver Island

Libby helped me make this dog portrait something special by sporting rad pink glasses that lent themselves perfectly to a high-key background. Add a splash of turquoise and shining silver highlights to those fashionable frames, and we get one delightful dog painting.

In order to accommodate the brightness of those glasses, my painting process for Libby’s portrait was a little different than usual. High-key or very saturated colours tend to be more translucent. Adding white would increase the opacity, but wash the colour out. So I needed to paint layers of reds (Cadmium light and dark, and magenta) on pure white.

dog painting portrait process from photo

My usual loose splashy underpainting had to be reigned in—and occasionally touched up, dried, and painted over. Another way to achieve a similar effect is with masking tape, but because I moved the location of the frames a couple times, I would have wound up re-painting anyway.

The final painting has a much different feel than the reference!

But that’s definitely Libby.

You can see more examples of my work on my website, Paws by Zann, or check out a specific gallery:

All Pet Paintings
Cat Portrait Art
Dog Portrait Art
Pet Ash Memorials

If you have a pet of your own that you’d like to see on canvas, send me an email at pawsbyzann@gmail.com. I’d love to bring your art vision to life.

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Thanks for reading! See you next time.

Zann

Zann Hemphill

Zann Hemphill

Zann Hemphill is a practising pet portrait artist, writer, and video producer.

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