Last summer I wrote a
post about a commission I had been given to execute a watercolor design for a Christmas card. This year I have been commissioned again by the same clients and I have been working hard to deliver the image they have in mind. The commission changed a bit last year to include a portrait of the clients' French Bulldog Peter. This year we are sticking to the same theme with more of a focus on him.
The idea is to have the little Frenchie share a surfboard with a Christmas tree while riding a big wave.
The pencil sketches above are the preliminary compositional sketches to determine what would work best. It was decided that I should combine these last two sketches into what would be the final image.
This is the first take in full color. I'm very proud of this wave, I looked at Japanese wood blocks for inspiration and I think this has some of that essence.
Moving on to a second take. Changes needed to be made to the dog, but thank God for the magic of Photoshop I did not need to recreate the wave. I only had to paint Peter, the tree, and the surfboard and they will get dropped in to the image of the wave.
I just finished working on the third take, more changes needed to be done to the dog. I had to make a few more sketches to be able to get it right.
This is the third revision on Peter and I believe this will be it, cross your fingers that this is it! I will be submitting this image for review on Tuesday, let's hope I meet the clients' wishes. Thank you for reading this blog and I hope your dog days of summer are splendid.
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