Meet the cutest three bichon frise dogs! They are Darcy, Tallulah and Holly. Holly sadly passed away just before Christmas 2023 and my client Scott asked me to create a drawing of all three dogs for his Mom, the dogs’ owner, as a gift to remember her beloved pet. He previously commissioned a pencil drawing of a dog from me and returned to me to draw this second portrait for him:
You previously crafted a beautiful pencil drawing for me of another family pet of ours and my mum still comments on how much she loves it, so I’d like to go down the pencil route again. I love the idea of some colour for the collars.
Scott at the initial commissioning stage in February 2024
I had one photograph to work from. The photo was a little blurry, so I used some imagination to add a little more detail, especially to the dogs’ eyes which are hiding away behind lots of fur 🙂 Working from photos like this often gives me a little more artistic license and usually results in a more creative portrait.
I suggested adding a few colour highlights to the dogs’ snouts and collars where visible. I wanted to add a bit more character into the drawing and I think it worked out well. Scott was very happy with the finished drawing:
Hi Ivana! I have no words – that is amazing. It is honestly perfect, thank you so much!! Mum will be so delighted with it.
Scott on seeing the final scan of the drawing in a mount, April 2024, Northern Ireland
The drawing is 25 x 30 cm in size and I used mostly graphite pencil. I used Faber-Castell Polychromos coloured pencil for the coloured highlights. The browns worked very well to add some warmth into the portrait.
Scott was very kind a got back to me after he had the drawing framed and gifted it to his Mum:
Hi Ivana! I had the picture framed and mum got it today. She is absolutely delighted and wanted to make sure I let you know how much she will treasure it. Thanks so much again!
Scott’s feedback after he gifted his Mum
I worked in my usual stages of an initial line sketch to create an accurate representation of the characters in the photo. I then moved onto shading and adding details to the sketch.
I removed some detail from the background and softened that part of the image to keep the focus on the three dogs and the detail in their fur.
Commission your own pet portrait by emailing your photos to info@trueimage.ie today!