Rocky, a Petit Basset Griffon Vendeen, is a happy guy and he looks like it from his portrait! His owner bid on a portrait at the fund raiser for the Petaluma animal shelter this past summer. The bid wasn’t just for any portrait of a dog. I create portraits of your own dog. Rocky’s owner had many photos for me to reference. He wanted to be sure Rocky’s “smiling” face was captured. The photo below shows the favorite expression the owner has of Rocky. As a dog portrait artist I ask the owner what they like about the photo and if there is anything they wish were different. Sometimes even the owner doesn’t realize certain things before the portrait is finished or almost finished. In this case, you can see by the photograph that Rocky’s eyes are mostly covered by hair. Rocky’s left eye is peaking out but the right eye is hidden. When the portrait was complete it just didn’t look the best that it could be. So, I modified the portrait to have both eyes peaking out. The other change I made from the photo was to slightly narrow the shoulder area. The owner was delighted with the changes and stated, “That’s my Rocky!”
