Evolution of a Boxer Portrait Commission & Bixby!

Hello to everyone, hope all is well! Today I delivered my Boxer portrait commission to Lisa Tannenbaum. It's always a wonderful thing to share your work with others, but it is even more special when it's a personal subject for the recipient. It's been a long process, we are both really busy people, so I thought I would pass on the event!

The commission began after I placed a post on my blog stating that 25% of proceeds from any animal portrait commission would go directly to Florida Boxer Rescue. As anyone who has visited this blog can attest it is an amazing organization that I truly admire and am thankful for...I've adopted two so far, Tilly and now Abby!

Lisa soon contacted me and we started exchanging information about what she wanted. She sent me two pictures of her beautiful boy and girl who had already passed on to the Rainbow Bridge. I could tell by the way she spoke of them that they had been very special to her family. I hoped I could do them justice!

I chose this photograph to work from, it was a terrific composition already!

I developed a sketch for her to approve to make sure we were thinking along the same lines. The sketch was for general placement and atmosphere of the picture. I let her know that one head got kind of smooshed, I ran out of paper, and I would develop the background once I began the painting.This is the sketch I submitted to Lisa.

After getting her approval the painting began! I almost always work on a brick red ground. This is very helpful, particularly for an animal portrait. It enriches the color I add to the canvas. I began with the boy on the left, and basically put him in during one sitting. Adjustments were made to him later. He's a Brindle, so I added some of his stripes in.

Next I worked on the beautiful girl on the right. Here are some photos of how her face progressed. She's so wonderful, I really took my time to get her right!                                

After completing the dogs I moved onto the background. I liked that they were sitting on the couch, but I wanted to add something along the bottom so I created a blue blanket to match the denim colored pillows. First try I painted the background yellow.

But after looking at it for a while I realized the red background had really worked better. It just brought out the wonderful color in the coats of the boxers. After submitting it to Lisa, and making a few changes, I reverted the background to the brick red. Here is the final result I delivered this morning!

Lisa now has a wonderful portrait to remember her cherished dogs by!

I will be donating the 25% to Bixby, a two year old Fawn male who came to the rescue from Animal control.

As you can see Bixby is in pretty bad shape, but he has definetly come to the right place! He is with a wonderful, crazy foster Dad (he actually has five boxers living with him) named Bill.

Bixby just had his hip operated on at Quail Hollow Animal Hospital. It appears that it had been damaged through abuse in the past.

If you're interested in helping Bixby, here's where you can donate: Bixby Hip Surgery just click on the link and make sure you post that you want it to help Bixby. Any amount at all is a huge help. I will be sending $45 his way from this portrait commission!

Thanks everyone for taking the time to visit, hope you enjoyed the progress!



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