Wild at Heart Illustration: Flash and Romeo

My second pet portrait commission of the year was of this duo, Flash and Romeo. Flash is a Jack Russel Terrier and Romeo is a Chihuahua. Melinda, a fellow GEICO associate commissioned me for this piece back in September after the GNIE article posted. (Which was then posted in March 2018 on the GEICO Career social media pages!)

Flash has more energy than he even knows what to do with and his older, lazy and content to cuddle brother, deals with him. I did ask if Romeo was winking-he is just tired. They are both about the same size physically that I could tell from other photos. My task was to put them closer together in my illustration-in this photo the angle and amount of negative space wouldn't allow too much detail on an 11x14 piece.

I sketched Romeo first then Flash. When ink is applied it is best to find defining lines for spacial awareness. With ink you have to go light first then darken as you go. I hop around the page to gradually darkening areas that are considered "darkest" to help keep the tones conservative for the lighter areas.

Often with ink I need to work in an area I can break my eye focus. If I stare too long on the area I'm working on I will go cross-eyed. There were many a night when I would stipple on the couch with dogs to keep my feet warm. Ruby will once in awhile check my progress and insist and more scratches. Scratch break!

I kept the background a simple cloth drape. I exaggerated shadows in the background to bring the dogs forward. I didn't want it to steal the focus away from the pups. Flash has a dark hued coat and I need the contrast to stay apparent and for Romeo to stand out even with his shading.

I used 03, 05, 08 point Pigma Micron Pens.

The reference photo may have been taken on a cell phone. (To be honest, almost all of the photos I have of my dogs are done with my phone.) A lot of reference photos I get are of low quality, poor lighting, and the dog is moving. I take on the challenge! This photo in particular could not be printed any larger than the what you see here. I would pull up the image on the laptop and zoom in to certain areas to find tone values and get the reflection of the eyes right.

I take work in progress pictures often. It helps me with perspective. I go into my phone and circle areas that need improvement and walk away to regroup my stippling plan. The top image is the "needs improvement" image with the circled areas in red. The bottom is the adjustments to those areas.