Emme & Ella A Portrait of a Girl and Her Dog

A Portrait of Emma and Ella.

I am fortunate to be surrounded by my wonderful family. They are my inspirations and are a joy to paint. This is my grand niece and her favorite dog. She is currently spending a good amount of time at my home while hers is under construction. Having the model close while I paint her portrait is such an advantage. Emme is four years old. She is strong willed and cannot be persuaded to do something that does not suit her. She has a beautiful and expressive face. Like her mother you always know what she is thinking when you look at her face.

This painting is an oil on 14 by 18 inch linen . The canvas was toned turpenoid diluted terra rosa and raw umber oil paint. When the paint was dry, using sienna pan pastels the drawing was added. I turned the canvas and reference photo upside-down to check the accuracy of the drawing.

The next step was to do the wash in layer using a limited palette of burnt sienna, ultramarine blue and permanent alizarine crimson thinned with turpenoid are used for this layer.

Once the wash in layer is dry a full color palette of paint is used. The paint is less viscus then previous layers. The focus here are shadow shapes, cool and warm skin tones and accurate contrast between darks and lights. The colors I used are Titanium white, Cad Yellow Light, Yellow Ochre, Raw Sienna, Burnt Sienna, Cad Red light, Perm Alizarine, Ultramarine Blue,

Cobalt Blue, Viridian Green, Raw Umber, Burnt Umber and Ivory Black