Odin, the Great Dane Puppy

Odin, the Great Dane Puppy

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This is an 8X10 portrait of my daughter's Great Dane, Odin. He is 160 pounds now, at least the last time I checked. His weight goes up daily it seems. The reference photo I used to draw the portrait was taken when he was about 10 weeks old. I gave the finished puppy portrait of Odin to my daughter as a birthday present.

When I began working on the background, I decided to try oil pastels, rather than colored pencils. I wanted to keep the background light, so the pastels worked out well for that.  They were also a lot quicker than doing the whole background with colored pencils.

I completed the background after drawing in the rough sketch of the dog, then began with Odin's eye. I used a combination of colors including: jasmine, goldenrod, yellow ochre, burnt ochre, dark umber, indigo and shades of gray. I darkened the rim of Odin's eye with indigo, sepia, dark umber and terra cotta.

The fur on the dog's head and back took many layers of colors. I layered cream, jasmine, yellow ochre and goldenrod for the lighter fur. For shadows like the wrinkles ontop of his head and around the ear, I layered goldenrod, dark brown, tuscan red, burnt ochre, sienna brown and black grape. I also used peach for the area between his toes, as well as cream and white.

I had to make sure that the shadows and highlights remained visible to give shape to Odin's snout.  I find black dogs or black areas difficult, so I really have to be aware of the shadows and highlights that are going on. To make the black areas in his snout have depth, I used many shades of gray, for instance French greys in various tones and cool greys. I also used layers of indigo, black grape, dark purple and lightly added black for more definition. These are the colors I used for the dog's nose, as well.

I applied four layers of workable fixative when I thought the portrait was done. After looking at it for awhile, I decided to add more layers of color overall to deepen the tones. Workable fixative is great because it allows you to make adjustments afterward. If I had used a permanent fixative, I would not have been able to add extra colors.

Take a look at the Step-by-Step slideshow that displays how I work with Prismacolor colored pencils and the color and fur progression.