Double Yorkie Portrait 6

Ouch!  It's been a while.  No, I haven't fizzled out on this. ;)   Just got a little side tracked by the busy weekends of August... spending time at the flea markets and had a park days celebration in our small town.  My son brought out his Minneapolis Molines for the town tractor pull.  He won 3 first place pulls and 2 seconds.  How exciting is that???   And in front of the hometown crowd.  I was very happy for him and my hubby aka "the pit crew/chief mechanic". ;)  The local volunteer fire department hosts the event, and they barbecue 1/2 chicken dinners and deliver them to the pull.  Nothing like carry out to make a girl happy!!  It made for a wonderful weekend with the most beautiful weather.

As you can see, I have begun Chester.  The top portion of his head has been blended, highlighted, and darkened.  The side of his face is at the mapping stage right now.  I have gotten quite a bit farther tonight with the mapping, but the light isn't good enough for another pic.  I am anxious to get to his eyes and muzzle area.  They are surrounded by some interesting dark hair that gives so much character to his face.  His chin hairs are more reminiscent of his daughters locks and should tie him into her nicely.  The area of the forehead and ears is smooth and lacking definition, so most of the details will present themselves around the eyes and below.   I will be off from work for a couple of days this week, so I hope to make the same progress on him as I did on his daughter, Bella.   

Double Yorkie Portrait 5

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Can you believe it?  Three days and I am already doing an update. :)  Time off from work translates into more time at the drawing board.  Well, I promised that this little girl, who happens to be named Bella, would at least be blended.  But I am happy to report, she is pretty much finished.  Her highlights are in with the shadows darkened.  Her fur is good to go until the minor touch ups at the end of the drawing process.

Now I will move on to the second Yorkshire Terrier that happens to be her Dad.  His name is Winchester  aka Chester for short.  His hair has a more defined edge and is very blended.  I am going out on a  limb and say that he should go a little faster than his daughter.  Yep I know, it wouldn't be the first time I was wrong! LOL 

Double Yorkie Portrait 4

I can read your mind... "When are you going to start blending Brenda?"  Sorry, it should have been done before now, but I couldn't help myself.  One hair led into another and then another.  I took this photo and was determined to start blending afterward but found myself mapping in her chin hairs.  Obsessive, I know!  The mapping process leaves the subject in such a mottled state.  So I will promise that the next update will have her looking more natural.  Blending stumps on the way!  

Double Yorkie Portrait 3

Back from vacation and ready to work.  As some of my followers know, I take vacation and attend the hunt on the 127 Corridor Yard Sale.  It is 654 miles of flea markets and yard sales from the bottom of Michigan to the top of Alabama.  It has been a very hot and fun vacation.  Probably the hottest one that we have attended in a long time.  We decided to start this year in Ohio and cut through Chicago on our way there.  My son has not been to the windy city, so it was fun to share that moment with him.  I will never tire of the hazy first glimpses of the Chicago skyline.  *sigh*  

I put in some time this morning on the portrait of the Yorkies (between unloading the vehicle and switching laundry ;) ) and am getting ready to create the second eye.  Yes, this is not a huge update, but I just wanted to let you know that I am still alive here! ;)  This vacation stuff does demand a lot of time from me, but now it is back to creating... :)

Double Yorkie Portrait 2

It has been a crazy weekend with a county fair and tractor pull thrown in, but I managed to get some work done on one of the Yorkies today.  She will definitely need a little reworking as the rest of her comes into view, but I am hoping that the darker values around her muzzle will set her off.  (They both have very light hair.)  The shadows are just a little hard to finish at this point without the darkest values to compare to.   This little one has hair going in every direction... No dull moments here!   In all honesty though,  I find it relaxing to be working at long hair again.  I hope the feeling lasts! ;)

Double Yorkie Portrait Cont.



Severe weather has gotten the best of me this week. Happily, I can report that our town now has electricity and cable/Internet restored after a 4 day hiatus. My home was lucky to not be out of power as long as some of our other residents, but the Internet was out for a good part of the week.  Not that it mattered much to me, since I was busy dragging and chipping brush for our tree business. With the tree work caught up and major heat in the forecast, I was more than content with taking this afternoon to dive into the double portrait of the two Yorkies.

As you can see, they are transferred to the Bristol board. The background will be left out for now, since it is not going to get the one in the photograph. My brain wanted me to start with the Yorkie on the right in the worst way. Please don't ask me why for I will never know the reason.  At any rate, common sense won out in the end, and I held strong to the laws of smearing and began with the little girl on the left. ;) She is mapped in as far as I would like her to be before the blending step. The edges of the fur will be rough until the background makes an appearance.

For anyone who might notice, my usual tape around the edges of my drawing is not present. There is a long story that surrounds its absence, but the short version is that the Turtle drawing had damage from the tape. It was not a malfunction of the tape, but the idiot that applied the tape. I used a colored ruler in the application of my graph that left a few marks on my paper. I attempted to erase these marks... lazily went ahead and used the paper instead of transferring the sketch to a new sheet of Bristol (Hence, the whole reason why I begin my sketches on transfer paper. Duh!)... applied the tape... took forever to complete the drawing... and the tape adhered to the areas damaged by the eraser. Aaargh! To make a long story short -- too late. ;) I am not at all worried that this will happen again, but I am erring on the side of caution. This is a commission, and I will tape the drawing at the point when the background goes in.  Enough said on that sticky situation...

Double Yorkie Portrait

As I mentioned in the post before, the next drawing is a consignment drawing of two Yorkshire Terriers.  The photo I had to work with showed both of the dogs being held onto.  I tossed around doing a bust of the two dogs but am not a fan of their bodies being drawn in separate areas of the paper and  fading into nothingness.  So, I played around on the computer and created a crop that is more true to my style.   The photo is pretty small, so I am using a little larger grid to sketch my line drawing on.  The background is going  to be removed and turned into a blur of shadows.

I was pretty happy with the crop of these two little sweeties, once they were printed out.   Well... I guess it would be more accurate to say, once they were printed out for the fourth time!  Have you ever had one of those days?  My printer is a Canon MP 560.  Although their has been much talk of Canons consuming ink, I really do love this printer.  It has separate ink tanks, and I keep printing even if the computer says to replace a particular tank.  (I have counted and printed 10 extra 8 x 10's the last time by doing that!)  Whatever gives the "ink replacement" warning is way ahead of the ink really running out, which is amazingly wasteful.  Anyways, my black ink was low, and my photo came out lacking that value.  Okay, I expected this eventually.  So, I pop in another sheet of photo paper and a black ink cartridge and start the process again.  Still no black.  What?  I ran a third attempt.  (Don't ask me why I would even do that.  My life mimics the saying that "Haste makes Waste."  Ugh!!)   After that failed attempt, the light went on above my head... clogged printer nozzle.  Duh!  This is the first time that has happened with this printer, which I must add is amazing for how little it is used.  Anyways, successful fourth print...  Yay!

As you can see by the line drawing, one of these little pups has a short and amazingly chiseled hair cut, while the other one is sporting "the Rachel"  made popular by Jennifer Aniston during the early days of Friends. LOL  (Love the cut, and the Yorkie breed  pulls it off so well!)  Let me also add... It is a sad day when your subjects have better hair cuts than your own, and they happen to be canines to boot! LOL  ;)   Back to my point, the contrast in hair styles, along with difference in the size of their heads, will lend itself well to this composition.  The finished size of this piece will be 6 1/4 x 10 1/2 inches.   The crop will make them appear to be looking out of the drawing, which may be a little bit of a twist on the conventional portrait, but sometimes it is nice to be unconventional right?  ;) 

Ooops... I have to add...

Happy 4th of July Everyone!!  :)