This perky fellow is Jack, the "granddog" of a client who commissioned Jack's portrait as a gift for her son's birthday. After several emails back and forth with the client to settle on a pose and size, I headed for Photoshop to experiment with the saturation, levels, contrast and brightness and sharpening filter. When I'd gotten Jack pretty much where I wanted him I printed out four prints:
1. The actual pose
2. A black and white version for a handy value chart
3 & 4: A couple of other shots of Jack that, posewise were not usable, but colorwise were excellent references. The preferred pose is a little washed out from the camera's flash, so to get Jack's true colors I asked the client to select additional references that are accurate colorwise. I'll be working from three photos while doing the portrait to get the information I need.
I've also been busy making color charts for my cp's. Somehow or other I've ended up with 160 different colors in various brands, which is wonderful, but makes selecting a color a little tougher. Every time I went for a different color I'd scribble a little swatch on scrap paper to see if it was the color I wanted. The light bulb finally went off (better late than never) that I should make a color chart for cp's as I'd done for watercolors. Apparently some of us are slow learners ;-)
The color chart has been quite informative. I found colors I had not used because... well, the color's name or outside color on the barrel of the pencil didn't seem to fit the job. Several colors weren't at all what I was expecting. It feels like I have new pencils!
So, we're now a little better organized and Jack is ready and waiting to have his portrait painted.
I'm off to get some lunch and then I have a date with Jack. See you soon with a WIP!
