Shiloh’s eye study — Day 22

Shiloh commission reference photo

The client would like these dreadlock hair on the ears included in the painting

Before Christmas I got a call from a  dog owner who saw my work at an art fair I did and wanted to commission a watercolor of her Australian shepherd.  Isn’t he beautiful??  I just love him.  We met and I got to know this feisty three year old dog. What a love!

The owners are very patient with me because I had this important show deadline (tomorrow!) for which I’m painting, but I feel like that’s in a good place.

Small study of eye and colors (click to view larger)

detailed line drawing

A while ago, I had done a detailed line drawing of the portrait without the ear changes. And today I grabbed a scrap piece of watercolor paper only intending to try out colors, but it morphed into this eye study done without preliminary drawing.

 This is going to be such a fun painting to do. I’ll be working on techniques to get the color blending and the hair texture and keep the white patches… and will probably do a nose study as well…

I’m liking it!  What do you think?