A Flower-Loving Golden Retriever: Creating the Illustration

A client asked me to paint an illustration of her adorable golden retriever. My approach is to develop a scene that represents the personality of the pet and reflects interests of the owner.

It just so happens the owner enjoys colorful flowers and this beautiful golden has a quirky habit of pulling colorful summer blooms out of their planters! So began the idea of the illustration. Here's more on my creative process.

The Reference Photos:
My client provided me with several, yet I seemed to gravity toward this one.

The Rough Sketch:

A Tighter Sketch, with whimsy:

An Adjustment:
The flowers are now in a pot versus growing directly from the ground.

A Close-Up:

Considering Flower Color Combos:

My Client Selected Pink! (yay!!!)

Painting:
Under-painting in gouache then color-building with Prismacolor pencils.

"Abigail and the Flowers", gouache and colored pencil, 5" x 7", by Cheryl Kugler

Shop For It:
Shop in my online artist store for super fun products adorned with this illustration such as quality cards, prints, plates, napkins, cutting boards and more. Find it here: Cheryl Kugler Artist Shop

Another sketch idea my client and I were kicking around because her dog loves belly rubs too... (maybe next time!)

Thanks for stopping by my art blog. Hope to see you here again soon!

5-Day Art Challenge - DAY 5

Hello Everyone! Today is DAY 5 of the 5-Day Facebook Art Challenge. (But, why let Facebook have all of the fun? That's why I'm posting it here, too). A warm thank you to Debbie Lamey MacDonald, a Nova Scotia artist, for nominating me.

For today’s post, I am sharing with you several commissioned pieces – two fine art paintings and two pet illustrations.

The Dogwood Blossom painting is a 30” x 30”, oil on canvas, painted from photographs that I took at a local nursery. I am super pleased with the oil paints by M. Graham that are based with walnut oil and offer such vibrancy.

The painting of delphiniums is a work-in-progress that I am painting right now for a client. It’s 30” x 30”, oil on canvas. Again, I am using my own reference photos that I took over the summer. Not only are delphiniums difficult to grow, they are difficult to find to photograph! 

My pet illustration, Cake Cats, was a pet illustration commission from last year. My client provided photos of her daughter’s cats and gave me a list of interest of her daughter and son-in-law. Her daughter loves to make cakes, loves Gerber daisies and her son-in-law is a Bills fan. In-progress photos and sketches of this project can be seen on my website. Gouache and colored pencil on vellum, 5” x 7”.

The Santa and dog illustration was a pet commission for a past Christmas card. The client provided photos of her mixed breed hound. Gouache and colored pencil on vellum, 5” x 5”. You can read about the process of drawing this illustration, here: http://cherylkugler.blogspot.com/2009/12/illustrating-dog-gone-cute-christmas.html

On my last day of this challenge, I nominate TatyanaStarikova, a talented illustrator who I met during a workshop at Highlights Foundation called “Mastering the Picture Book”.