Kingsley’s portrait finished!

Okay I cheated.

The rule was to finish this twitter portrait in less than 140 minutes. But I ended up painting for a extra 15. In my defense, Lulabelle’s free portrait was finished in 2 hours even, so I figure I am still under as a whole. And it’s my contest anyhow, so whatever. Sorry, that’s the guilt talking. Here’s Kingsley’s (155 min) portrait!

July's free twitter portrait winner, Kingsley

Below is how he started out: grey gesso, a grid and a white charcoal pencil. You can barely see him, but this is the stage I call, “He’s on the canvas.” It’s really important to get him on the canvas accurately because there’s no time, I’ve learned, to fix much of anything in 140 minutes.

Initial white charcoal sketch of Kingsley

Next I “sketch” an outline with paint. Now he’s really on the canvas.

Initial painted sketch of Kingsley

This is what I refer to as “Kingsley as Red Panda.”

Kingsley As Red Panda

And why I call it that.

Raise your right hand if you look like Kingsley

And here is where I made a mistake. For some reason I went all “clown color” on poor Kingsley. Usually I paint from dark to light (ie: Lulabelle), but this time I thought, well…I don’t know what I was thinking. This is Kingsley in temporary clown make-up.

Former Ringling Brothers employee

Then it’s a race against my own $&%*!!^@ self-imposed time limit to actually paint a black and white dog over a color dog. Within 45 minutes. I was on a roll and forgot to take pics for a while so the image below is a couple leaps forward in the process.

Here’s where I start actually seeing that the clown make-up might work out. This stage gave me hope (and relief) because it started to look okay.

Getting there...

Almost there…

Green agrees with me

And…Scene!

Hey, it's me, Kingsley! (finally)

A big thank you to Shanni, Kingsley’s human, for being so patient for her portrait. I had to put Kingsley on hold for a month longer than I had planned. (Of course, my thank you is not half as good as Kingsley and friend’s thank you. Or even Lulabelle’s.)

Could YOU be the next winner of the 140 (I promise this time) minute free twitter portrait? You’re in luck because the next give away is on 09/01/09! Please read the contest entry rules and get those photos ready to post.

And you don’t have to win a contest to have your own four-legged family member painted. Check out my online gallery and drop me an email.

As always, thanks for reading.

-Aimée