Framing Chloe & Ruby

I’ve been working on the framing side of things so far this week. Lots of moulding samples arrived so I’m building some boards to display them on. I’ve framed the portrait of Chloe & Ruby, the main frame is oak which I’ve sealed and waxed, this is over a dark wood floater frame, a sort of contemporary take on a traditional framing material. I’m really pleased with the way it’s come out, the oak is gorgeous and really suits the painting, and the furniture in the room where the painting will eventually hang :) I had a little of the floater moulding left over, so I’ve used that to frame the picture of Bex, I’ve left a much larger gap around that which sets the painting off very nicely, I’ll do some more like this :)

Mr & Mrs Rice

I’ve been working on the portrait of Matthew & Meagan today. Again working from dark to light. Also varnished the portrait of Chloe & Ruby and Gesso’ed the canvas I made yesterday…time for a beer now I think :)

Chloe & Ruby portrait finished

Chloe & Ruby all finished & a photo of the wood all cut for the frame :)

Golden Hair...

Golden hair done, just need to do the flower in Chloe's hair & work over Ruby's top :)

Stripes

More work on the clothes today, Chloe’s top is pretty much done. Ruby’s stripy top is much more complex so that’ll take a couple of passes to get right. I’m working from light to dark on it initially, mainly to work out where all the stripes go, once that’s done I’ll go back over it from dark to light to get the folds correct.

Graham's Dog Kennels...

The main pass on the faces is now done & I’ve started on the clothing, this is going to be painted more fully than the recent paintings and will (fingers crossed) be the style of the next set of paintings…and as you can see from the other photo, if the painting doesn’t work out, I can always open a kennel ;)

today...

Todays progress...

some mid tones...

Building up the mid tones today…

Dark to Light

I’ve been working on the painting of Chloe & Ruby today, I’m working from dark to light, nearly finished the shadowed areas, more tomorrow…

Chloe & Ruby (Matthew & Meagan)

Drawn out Chloe & Ruby & now working on thickening the lines and filling in the darker areas on this one and the one of Matthew & Meagan, more work to do on both…

My furry assistant…

I've finished the ‘surprise’ commission this week, so everything will be blogable next week.

Chloe and Ruby were in modelling for their portraits yesterday and as you can see from the photo, Bryn was a great help… Also did a little work on Matthew & Meagans painting, finished drawing the hands and started building up some of the main outlines…more on that next week…:)