Another aspect

I tried another one of "Tildy," from another photo representing a completely different mood. No smiles this time, but instead a rather quizzical, almost anxious look. And again, I feel like I didn't quite catch it. I got the love in the eyes, but not the curious cocked-head, eyebrows-up expression of the photo. And without that, I'm not sure the portrait is a good one.

There is always an indefinable something you have to capture to make the portrait individual to that person or animal, and I'm beginning to grasp how to get that with people, but not quite yet with the animals. Also, these smooth-haired, mostly white dogs are hard to paint! Gimme a hairy mop of a dog and I can work it over with a pen and some expressive line and get the gist, but this gal was a much bigger challenge.

This is Mathilda #2
Pencil and watercolor on Fluid 140-lb. watercolor paper


An addendum to this post: Susan liked and is taking both of them.