Art Lesson - "My Dog Charlie" -

Art Lesson - Pet Portrait

This past month I received a phone call from a mom inquiring about private art lessons for her son. She said he loved to draw, and she wanted to encourage his creative passion. We discussed what lesson and medium would be of interest to him. Since they have a dog - and what boy doesn't love his dog ~ we decided on a painted pet portrait. For the first lesson, I scanned and cropped a picture of his dog ~ so the dog ~ Charlie ~ would be the focal point of the painting. Then, I stood there in awe as this third grader drew a beautiful replication of the scanned picture.

Once his sketch was finished ~

green acrylic paint was used for the under-painting,
then set aside to dry.

During the next few classes he sketched the drawing onto canvas ~
painted the whole dog white ~
added light gold paint to the fur ~
mixed in light brown, dark brown and more white paint
to create the spots and shadows on his dog.
then let this dry.

The final touches ~ adding a pig to the end of the rope for his dog's chew toy ~
adding a dog collar ~
and adding texture to the rug.

Tadaa.... ~ A boy and his dog ~ The finished masterpiece.