A commissioned oil painting of a little chihuahua named Dinky. What strike me of this little fellow is his alertness and compact body. He’s ready to spring into action.

Below is a step by step of how I paint this portrait. This process had turned out more successful for me to follow for future commissions. And this had come out of a workshop that I had taken from Sarah Sedwick. Here’s one of her videos about her step-by-step alla prima oil painting.

I started off with a thumbnail sketch to established where I wanted to place Dinky. It should be simple enough but it was a great warm-up. Then I did a pencil block in on paper of shadow/dark and light shapes. Using the pencil drawing as a base I gridded it and laid in with transparent red oxide on the canvas. Then in the fourth stage I laid in the basic shapes and local colors. The final stages comprise of adding more concise colors and background. The eyes and the area around them were the anchor for everything else. More details were devoted there.

This one I felt was one of my best. More info on commissions click to go to my Etsy