Sprout the White Boxer pup in Acrylics on Gessobord​

Photograph of a black and white image of a white boxer pup being held in the hand of a married woman
Reference image

​This is Sprout, a little White deaf Boxer girl who was a little puppy at the time of this photo (This is Sprout now) Myself and a friend had gone up to another friends house to visit their new addition to the Boxer clan (their 4th) and she was such a bundle of fun. The fact that she happily fell asleep in the arms of someone she had only met an hour earlier really makes this capture special and I had to turn it into a painting.

MEDIUM: Acrylics on board
SIZE: 8" X 8"
SUPPORT: Ampersand Gessobord
COMPLETED: CURRENTLY IN PROGRESS

CREATING THE PORTRAIT:

There are some images that can be far more effective in Black & White and this was one of them and so decided the painting would be created in monotone too. The black background although necessary, was rather bland and so decided to add a fine amount of texture by applying the black paint with a palette knife. I began the painting by laying down the loose base tones beginning with the hand and followed on with a thicker application of fur to Sprout.
Once all the under layers have been applied, I swap to a finer brush to begin applying the smaller details including the creases in the fingers and follow this up with the application of extremely fine fur all over Sprout's head and nose area - click the grey link above these photos to see a short video of this application.