Koda

After doing a commissioned portrait of my Mother's dogs Keeper and Nora, I posted a photo on Facebook and caught the attention of one of my friends. Brian sent me a picture of his family dog: Koda. A black lab that loved going on the boat and passed away this past fall. This portrait was a gift for his Mom. Just in time for Mother's Day!!!

Black labs are always tricky to draw because of the matte look to their fur. Ever notice how hard it is to get a picture of a black lab? Little bright dots for eyes in a black blob! I had a black lab mix named Holly growing up and it was so hard to get a picture of her unless she was in the sun. I was thankful to have such a good photograph of Koda to use! I had to simplify the background to bring the attention to Koda. I used blues, purples, browns, and grey with the black in Koda's fur. All my artwork shows more vivid in person. Pictures as usual never do them justice. I had sent a preview pic to Brian and he said "Excellent." Imagine me puffed up chest-smiling so big my eyes are squinted into slits, and my cheeks are all pink. It happens that way. I'm a living cartoon character. 

I love to know that I do the subjects of my work justice. That I represent with illustration the loved ones of others. I enjoy talking with Brian. How we met was a shared love for a certain otter picture used as his profile picture at the time. No one should be surprised that I would love this!

He is a friend of friend that I adopted. Our friendship grew trading absurdly cute videos and photographs of animals over Facebook. I go see him play for Two or Less occasionally too. Check 'em out. They rock :)

https://www.facebook.com/TwoOrLess

http://twoorless.webs.com/

This is Brian taking his Koda portrait home!

Doing commissioned work for friends and family raises the stakes for me to make sure I give the pieces all I have to give! I do this anyway, but the last phase of the "editing" for my work is staring at it and making minor tweaks. I will put in a place that I can easily see it walking by from any vantage point in the room. This process can take an hour or 8 hours it really depends. For friends and family its usually the later hourly amount of time spent thinking I'm crazy. 

I can let you know though...It's all worth it. 

To my warm hearted friend that sends me videos of penguins getting tickled to make my day...

I am happy that I was able to illustrate Koda for your family. 

Thank you!