The Boys!

"The Boys" is a painting that I did today. The stars in the painting are "Apache" (Ch. Abaca ShaCone Native Spirit) and "Chief" (Ch. Abaca ShaCone Free Spirit). Abbe and I bred these 2 boys along with Pam and Lonnie Patterson. They have both done very well at the dog shows. They are both group winners and Apache is now a Specialty Best in Show Dog, winning the Portland Afghan Hound Specialty last month shown by Heather Lindberg. These boys have just begun their show careers and both Abbe and I are really excited with their progress.

I wanted to share with you my approach to this painting. The first step of course was to draw the boys onto the canvas. ( I did not get a photo of this) I used a reference photo taken by Christopher Broughten. The photo was taken in Santa Barbara late in the day and was a little foggy, except where the light was hitting the dogs in the front. A wonderful composition, thank you Chris! I really wanted to capture the beauty of these two dogs. I proceeded to block in the shapes of color to make a very abstract looking painting. Putting cool colors in shadows and warm colors where the light hit the dogs. (See below)



The second stage was to make sure the values were correct by adding either cool colors to the warm areas or warm colors to the cool areas until they started to read correctly. I also wanted to make sure I used different colors on the dogs as they are different in life. Even though there is really no landscape here I wanted to give that impression by showing some atmosphere in the painting. I also wanted the brightest, lightest and the most contrast part of the painting to stay with the front portion of the dogs.

The third step was to start adding colors to the different shapes to start making the dogs look 3 dimensional. I wanted to make the colors sing in the front and have less importance in the back.


The forth and final step was to add the details, but not too much. I want to suggest to the viewer that these are afghan hounds not describe. The painting was done with a brush in the beginning and finishing with a palate knife. I love the texture the palate knife gives a painting.



This is the finished piece so you don't have to scroll back to the top of this blog.

I hope you have enjoyed this step by step approach to my painting. Looking forward to hearing your comments. I will be making giclee prints and note cards from this painting. Please contact me to place your order. As with all of my blogs I really appreciate your dedication and hope that you will share them with your family and friends. You too can have your pets immortalized by Terry. Until next time, ENJOY THE ART!

Terry d. Chacon
shacone@aol.com