Project 10: Pet Protrait

The pet portrait was the last project I decided to do. I knew it would take forever since I was planning on stippling the whole thing. I did something a lot like this Sophomore year and when Mrs. Rossi said we had to do a pet portrait I felt like this would be a great opportunity to see how much I've improved since Sophomore year. I've definitely improved a lot since then. I knew I had a bunch of pictures of my dog but when I saw this one that my sister took I knew this was the one I was going to use. I loved the angle of it and how you could see all the details in her face. I started off with a light sketch of the picture, I drew a few light lines where the wrinkles were so later I knew where I'd have to make it darker. Once I was done with the sketch I got started on the long process of stippling the whole thing. I started off by doing the really dark areas first, like her ears, because I knew they'd take the longest. Then I moved on to the areas around her mouth and rope. I had never realized how many different shade were there until I stared on this project. I tried to do the darker parts first then go back and do the lighter parts. After I finished her mouth and nose I moved on to her eyes. They were really difficult to do because in the picture she's sleeping so her eyes are closed, but the area around her eyes are black so it was really hard to make it look like she had eyes but also keep it dark like in the picture. But I think in the end it does look like how I wanted it to. I kind of procrastinated doing the wrinkles on her face until the very end, so after finishing her eyes, ears, and mouth, I started working on the parts of her paws that you can see in the picture. It was hard to do them because you have to make it have the value that's there in the picture but also not make it to dark because her paws are white. Finally I started on her face and all the wrinkles which I had been dreading the whole time. I started on the right side of her face because I knew it was lighter and I felt like it would take less time. I started from the bottom by her eye and worked up. I kept going over and making the parts closest to the wrinkles darker so it looked like they had more depth. Once I felt like the right side  was done I moved on to the left side. The left side was much darker than the right side do it took a lot longer to do. There was one wrinkle that came across the white part in the middle of her face that was really hard to do because I had to keep it pretty light but also have to show the value on the edge of the wrinkle so you could tell it was raised up higher. The last part I had to do was the white part in the middle of her face and at the top of her back. I had originally kept it really light but when I showed it to Mrs. Rossi she said it needed to show more value so you can tell where her head ends and her back begins. Seeing it now I agree, it did need more value in those areas. To be honest I was worried I wouldn't finish and I would work on it whenever I could to make sure it was done on time. In the end I love the way it turned out and I'm planning on it being one of the pieces I put in the Hallie.