...and the final product!

And here's the final product. You can see that I've gone in and lightened up the background with some nice, gauzy patches that are pretty evocative of the grass in the initial photograph. And I've blended in that whole reflection of the greenish light in the dog's ruff.

What I like about this portrait is that it's very realistic. It captures the dog's appearance and, I think, to some extent, his personality. And it still makes me wonder WHAT ON EARTH IS THAT DOG LOOKING AT?

(Even though I am the creator of THIS particular dog, so by rights, I SHOULD know).

At the same time, it's clear that THIS IS A PAINTING. There are nice places where the yellow and red underpainting shows through that adds to the painting. I like that. I like that this piece is very "painterly" (which was a big word my art professors used, probably to confuse me). So to keep the confusion from spreading, here are the definitions of "painterly" from dictionary.com:

paint·er·lyAdjective/ˈpāntərlē/

1. Of or appropriate to a painter; artistic: "she has a painterly eye".

2. (of a painting or its style) Characterized by qualities of color, stroke, and texture rather than of line.

I'd say it's probably definition 2 that we're dealing with, but maybe it's both, in some ways.

And that's my whole process, in a nutshell! I have spared you all the moments of frustration, examples of profanity, and suicidal impulses in this series, but you have the basics!

That's it for today. Now I must go learn how to stretch canvas better. Currently my attempts at stretching canvases resemble those of a nonathletic five-year-old, and I have about 3 hours to polish my skills, since I have some giclee prints on canvas that I'm putting in some pet supply stores and veterinary offices this afternoon! So it's off to the staple gun and the canvas pliers and YouTube videos on how to fold the CORNERS. The corners are KILLING ME!