Wednesday, May 02, 2007

Teddy bear picnic



I was recently commissioned by a friend of mine who is a fabulously talented artist as well - www.samanthasandbrook.com - to create a portrait of her pet dog Ludlow. Rather than the usual pet in front of bland background Samantha had an unusual and imaginative request to paint her puffy toy pup at a formal teddy bear's picnic. Ludlow, looking like a stuffed toy himself, looks right at home among the bears.

I began by sketching out some different possibilities for the composition. Sam and her husband settled on their favorite two and suggested combining certain elements from both of them. From there I worked up a linear. Samantha requested mainly neutrals with pops of color. Since I'm used to working in a high contrast colorful palette I decided to do a color linear. This lets me check that she likes the color, as well it gives me a reference to print and stick to while I paint.

I'll show the final 16 x 16 painting once I'm finished.

7 comments:

Tyrone said...

Hahaha .. I love this ... it's such a messed up portrait ... can't wait to see the final ...

ADC said...

Great! That Teddy Bear Picnic song ill be in my head for days! Thanks alot!

Great idea to do a colour test in Photoshop before tackling the painting in real media!

Zen said...

You know I love it...

Zen said...

You know I love it...

AlanaMcCarthy said...

Today's the day the teddy bears have their piiiicnic!

You're welcome! :)

Evan said...

I like the dog bones on the cake. But the costumes of the bears are all over the place! Victorian, turn-of-the-century, flapper? Did Ludlow find a time machine?

(Just kidding.)

Tyrone said...

What a dick!