Hey Hive!
We're back again with another Art Attack! If you're new to the series, this is where I share my paintings and the process behind them. A behind-the-scenes look at my artwork, if you will. This is not to say that I'm very good at art, or that I'm a professional in any way. In fact this is the opposite, and serves as a reminder to how I first started, and lets me track my progress too!
If you know me you'd know I'm a huge corgi fan! They're so derpy and adorable that I have hundreds of photos of corgis on my phone to look at whenever I'm down. Like this little cutie!
Source: Facebook
Anyway, a couple of weeks ago (on Art Attack #23), I shared a painting I did of a corgi print I found online. And for my first time I think it turned out pretty well actually!
And after that piece I promised myself that I would try painting a corgi from an actual photo. And when I saw this posted on one of the corgi groups I follow on Facebook called Disapproving Corgis, I thought it'd be perfect to try and paint!
This corgi is adorably named Lady Sesame von Bagel! Her hooman's name is Renée Bertolus and she's always posting about her little cutie. I always look forward to seeing her posts about Lady Sesame von Bagel on the group. With such an awesome name she's really memorable; I mean c'mon with a name like that how can you forget (or corget hehe)!
Anyway, I really liked this photo so I thought I'd try to replicate it!
Here's my sketch:
Because this photo is flat (i.e. no perspective shifts) it makes it easier to sketch. And I only need to focus on the main outline of her body and the curves from her little drummies and pawsies.
Here she is outlined:
For her eyes I just used my markers to colour it since watercolours might cause the colours to mingle together too much.
Cleaning up and getting ready to paint!
I used my standard IKEA MÅLA watercolour set for this which was alright since the Lady Sesame von Bagel's colours are mainly beige and white.
I tried my best to mimic the different gradients in her fur colour to make it accurate. I might've made her a little more brown that she is in the picture since it would be a tad plain if I didn't.
It also serves to mimic the shadows from the original picture as well to give it a little more depth.
Sorry this pic is a little blur btw I think my camera wasn't focused well.
Next it was time for the background! For this I stuck to a simple gradient instead of following the photo, since it's blurred anyway. And I wanted Lady Sesame von Bagel to stand out since she is the focal point of the painting.
And this is what the final product looks like! After I added in the fur details, and stump lines.
I think the stump could've been done a little better but I'm not sure how, tbh. Maybe if it wasn't so uniform, and done in a more radial shape to give it more perspective. I reused the technique I did for the Breath of the Wild cliff I did previously, but since this is a stump I guess it doesn't really apply.
Overall, I think this piece came out pretty well! Her mouth kinda looks a little funny though because I wasn't sure what to do about her teeth. Maybe I should've made the tongue bigger. Oh well. I think she still looks cute and that's all that matters.
I posted this piece on the Disapproving Corgis group but I'm not sure if Renée saw it. Maybe she didn't but I think she would've liked it. I hope so anyway.
I still need to practise but I'll definitely be drawing more doggos soon!
Thanks so much for reading!
To find out more about me, check out my intro post here!
Art Attack! #28: A Lovely Lift Off! 🎈
