Painting Maya, a Dog on the Beach, from Photos
Lighting-wise, this dog beach painting has been a challenge.
The main reference, the one that I’m using for Maya’s pose and expression, didn’t show much of her colouration. It also didn’t have great lighting. So I have a second photo to work from there, and I’m using both to make this dog portrait work!

The 3-minute video below shows a time-lapse of the painting process after the background and a few lines of text have been added.
Time-lapse Video of Maya on the Beach
The (Almost) Finished Piece
After filling Maya in, my client and I are both happy with her likeness in the piece. But it still needs something to tie the foreground and background together!
In this piece, I used lighting to accomplish unified depth. For Maya, I’ll most likely also use a translucent mist or lighting effect to make sure she’s not too separate from the water behind her.



You can see more examples of my custom pet portraits in the Paws by Zann Pet Portrait Art Gallery (or just Dog Paintings or Cat Portraits)
If you have a pet of your own that you’d like to immortalize on canvas, get in touch!
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Thanks for reading!
Zann