Zelda portrait in progress - start to finish
- Kevin Roeckl
- 7 hours ago
- 19 min read
January 10
I’m starting a portrait of Zelda, a Top Twenty Doberman. Commissioned by Doberman breeder Susan R. as a gift to Zelda's owner Diane.
This is the first in-progress picture of Zelda’s portrait, colored pencil on green Canson paper. I started with her tail....
But before I began the hands-on work on the portrait, Diane and I had to decide on the overall design, size, and colors. I walk my client through those decisions, guided by their wishes and preferences.
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This is the reference photo of Zelda that Diane wanted me to use.
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At first Diane thought she might like a mountain scene.
I pulled out some reference photos of the Rocky mountains from among the thousands of photos I’ve taken on my travels. Cut out Zelda from the background in Photoshop and began playing around with different mountain backgrounds….
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The challenge is to make sure Zelda stands out against the background. In each of the 3 mountain layouts it was difficult to capture her entire topline as a single unbroken line from tail to ears without being interrupted by the detail of the scenery behind her.
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I had suggested one option would be to have Zelda’s Top Twenty ribbon behind her instead of a landscape.
Diane said yes to that. She photographed the ribbon for me and I created several different versions of a layout with the rosette behind Zelda’s head and the ribbon tails flowing out behind her. (Crude Photoshop design.)
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In the end we both agreed Zelda’s beautiful structure on a plain green background was the best. Just a slight suggestion of the grassy lawn. Anything else took attention away from Zelda.
I made one more suggestion of a sprinkling of flowers behind her, in the colors of the Top Twenty ribbon. But even those were distracting.
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The final decision was just Zelda on a simple green background, with grass under her. I made a detailed drawing on “Light Green” Canson paper and got to work.
Photo taken in my studio with Zelda’s photo on the monitor.
“Zelda”
BISS TT GCHS CH Lookout Tawee v. Radiant CGC, WAC
🎨 Prismacolor pencil on Canson Mi-Teintes paper.
Zelda portrait in progress 2
Continuing work on Zelda. Photo taken in the studio today.
These are all the greys, black, brown, and blue pencils I’m using for her black coat. The colors I use for her rust areas are in the upper left.
Zelda portrait in progress 3
Putting in Zelda's musculature. This has to be exactly precise to capture her structure…her beautifully correct structure.
By working in from the edges of her torso - topline, bottomline, and shoulder - I’m giving a place for all those shapes and values of her structure to attach. All those shapes and values that flow one into another. They have to be created separately by the artist, but together they form a single piece: Zelda’s body…none of them are separate.
FOR ARTISTS:
I put in the edges first also to capture the correct values (lightness/darkness) where the edge of Zelda’s figure meets the background color. Zelda has to stand out from the background. Her bottom-line, which is in shadow, is black (under her belly and chest) or dark browns (bottom side of her back legs): they stand out easily on the mid-tone green. But the top of her back is highlighted. Much lighter than the other values in her black coat on her torso. In the reference photo, the pale grey on the top of her back was lighter than I’ve made it. The value in the photo would have been very similar in value to this green paper, and her top-line would have disappeared into the background. There would not have been as clear a delineation between Zelda and the green background. So I darkened that value along her back. I kept it light enough that, comparatively, it will be lighter than the rest of her torso — to show the light falling along her back. But I made it just dark enough that Zelda’s topline - her beautiful, correct, show-winning topline - stands out crisply from the green.
So in addition to giving me some edges to the structure to attach the shapes of muscles and bones to correctly as I work inward, doing the edges first gives me the correct values to attach everything else to as well. The highlight along Zelda’s back is darker than the photo, now dark enough to stand out from the green, but it has to be lighter than the other values that will be adjoining it. Those edges guide me in the shapes that will attach to them….and they also guide me in the values that will attach to them.
Zelda portrait in progress 4
Lots of colored pencil artists believe it’s necessary to build up lots of layers with light pressure to achieve a solid color. I don’t often work that way. I choose the pencil color I want to end up with (if there is a color which is exactly that) and then apply it with heavy pressure.
I’m working on this Doberman’s black coat. If you look at the “interior” of the area I’m filling in on the dog’s body, and look around the edges of that area, you can see the actual pencil colors I’m using. If you can zoom in enough to see pencil strokes, you can see that I am not building up layers. I am using the specific shade of grey, or blue-grey, or black, that I need. I do blend two or three layers when I’m transitioning from one color to the next, for example for the highlight on the bulge of a muscle where it curves into the shadow of the muscle. (That’s what gives the forms a 3-dimensional look.) And in places where the green paper is not covered solidly enough, I use a top color to “burnish” (blend) the colors I’ve put down into a solid mass of pigment to completely fill the tooth of the paper.
In this artwork, I want the colors on the dog’s black coat to completely cover the green paper color. I don’t want any green showing through. In other cases I may want the paper color to show through, so I don’t apply the pencil pigment as heavily because I’m deliberately using the green of the paper as part of the color. For example, If there was a section of this dog’s coat that was greenish-grey, I’d apply grey pencil lightly there and let the green show through.
Zelda portrait in progress 5
Continuing to build Zelda’s musculature and the shapes of her body, the muscles and bone — her structure. A correct Doberman should look “all of a piece”: like everything is connected and in balance, each part flowing harmoniously into the next. Zelda is a wonderful example of how that looks.
When portraying show dogs or show horses, an artist must understand the anatomy of that animal, and they must also know the official “Breed Standard” of that breed: the measure of perfection that each individual animal is judged against in the show ring. Breeders and show competitors know every nuance of correct structure for their breed, and they have an acute, trained eye for what is correct. They will spot it immediately if an artist doesn’t understand what they are portraying.
Zelda portrait in progress 6
When I shared this in-progress picture with Diane today I wrote:
“I started working on Zelda’s head today. I re-read what you wrote about her. It made me cry again.”
Diane replied:
“❤ I can’t tell you how much this portrait is going to mean to me…”
At the end I’ll share what Diane wrote with you. (Zelda is still alive and well at 9.)
Zelda portrait in progress 7
Resuming work on Zelda, the portrait of the Top Twenty show Doberman, after a VERY long break for health issues.
Now working on her forelegs.
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I put in the black areas first to orient myself. Then the highlights, then fill in the mid-tones, blending and attaching to the lights and darks, to indicate the shapes of the bones and muscles. I’ve ended the black coat of her foreleg and below that will be the rust part of her coat that will be a different set of colors.
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These are the pencils I’m using for her black coat, and her rust areas.
I love the way the orange and rust colors "pop" on the green paper.
Zelda portrait in progress 8
As I worked my way forward on Zelda’s body to her shoulders, I wanted to do her head next. Her ears are finished, which was my first day on her head. The next day of work would have been her eyes, which are the most critical part of any portrait. That’s such an important studio-day where I need to have total concentration and no interruptions. I usually plan my week’s schedule around that. But I’ve had so many meetings and appointments that were only available at certain times (right in the middle of my studio time — Grrrrr!) that it was hard to find a day when I didn’t have to split my time between the studio and other things. So I went ahead and started working on Zelda’s forelegs, which otherwise would have been the last part of her body I would do.
Her legs are finished now, as you can see, so I’ll be working on her face next.
Zelda portrait in progress 9
Fire in her eyes, and the music I listen to in the studio, the “playlist to her soul”.
(Read the captions)
These 5 pics show how I constructed Zelda’s head.
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The eyes are the focal point of a portrait. "The window to the soul" as they say. Zelda has a strong spirit and fire in her eye. It was very important to capture that in Zelda's eye and expression.
This pic shows the eye finished. I spent my studio workday just on that. It had to be perfect. The next ones show the progression of creating her head, to capture Zelda’s strong spirit.
FOR ARTISTS
After I finished the area around Zelda’s eye, I began connecting the base of her ear to her cheek, so I can continue filling in the forehead and work forward from there down her nose, doing all the black areas of her head before moving on to the rust areas.
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The second day’s work on Zelda’s face.
I’ve filled in the rest of the black coat of her upper face, and then was able to connect the section I had done previously on the front of her lower neck, as I added in the shadowed curve of her lower jaw — with dark browns and deep earth-reds, since that is the rust-colored part of her face, not black. All of the parts of an animal’s anatomy (including humans’) connect to one another. We have names for separate body parts, but they are not separate from eachother.
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This is how the whole portrait looks now….
Zelda, a Top Twenty show Doberman, has an almost flawless silhouette.
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I continued working down the top of her nose to complete all the black parts of Zelda’s head. Then started on the rust areas.
FOR ARTISTS
Since this artwork is on a mid-tone green, the outer edges of Zelda (where they meet the green), have to be either darker or lighter than that green, in order to stand out and be visible. On most of a black Doberman’s body, the edges are darker than the green. The top of her back where light was falling from the sky, was lighter, almost the same value (lightness/darkness) as the green. So I darkened it to make her beautiful top-line stand out. (See previous pic) But on the top of her nose, where the skin is shiny, it would not have looked realistic to darken it that much. So I exaggerated the highlights to make sure it would stand out from the green. Otherwise her nose would have faded into the background when viewed from a distance and looked like the front of her face was missing. To stand out from the background, the edges of a figure have to be either lighter or darker than the background.
When I’m working on a section of the body that contains a lot of complex shapes that have to be connected to one-another, I usually complete the outer edges first, as you see here on the underside of her head and throat. That “contains” the shapes and gives me the correct values — in this case the shadowed areas under her mouth and chin — which guides me on the values and shapes as I work inward and connect all the other structures (shapes and colors) of the rust areas of Zelda’s head. Her cheekbone, lips, and muzzle with it’s rows of whiskers.
As you can see, I aded the little dark “pits” where a dog’s whiskers come out, on the front of Zelda’s muzzle. Those are the darkest shapes there, and give me a “road map” to add the mid-tones and lighter values and shapes in that complex area.
After I worked my way around the edges putting in the correct colors and shapes: the top of her nose, her nose, the front of the lips, her chin, the bottom of her jaw, then I fill in the interior orange/rust area, guided by the colors and values of the outer edges, connecting all the shapes together as I blend the pencil colors into one-another.
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Zelda’s head finished.
Three day’s work. I went slowly because her face, her expression, and especially her eye, is so important.
“Fire in her eyes, and the “playlist to her soul”:
The music I listen to in the studio is very important to my work. Especially on the day I’m working on the eyes, I specifically listen to music that I consider the “playlist” to their soul. I have Apple Music (for iPhone) which I play through speakers in my studio. I’ve made over a hundred custom playlists - I create one for each portrait I do. With AppleMusic I can either start an existing playlist playing, and I know the mood and “feeling” it’s going to give me. Or I can choose a specific song for that individual and start it playing and when it’s finished AppleMusic gives me others that fit that style and mood. Sometimes I am amazed at how they fit the specific individual I’m working on. It’s like the “soundtrack” to them. A lot of times it’s as though the spirit of that person (human person or dog person) has “sent” me the songs that go with their eyes, their essence. Or sometimes it seems like the soul of the client who loves them has sent me the soundtrack. As though the songs are what the client’s heart wants to say to their loved one.
When I was listening to a particular song called "Mountain Hymn” there is this line that repeats that says “See the fire in your eyes". I could hardly see to draw through fighting back tears. I get really connected when I am working on someone's eyes…especially when it is a special heart Doberman like the ones I have loved and still miss. Like what Diane has with Zelda.
I sent the pics and my words about Zelda’s “soundtrack” to Diane. She responded:
“OMG – I seriously got choked up just reading the email and then I scrolled down to the updates… I’m almost “ugly” crying right now… SO beautiful and SO Zelda!
Thanks again for all of the heart that you are putting in to this project.”
Zelda portrait in progress 10
The figure of Zelda is finished and now I’m putting in the grass around her feet.
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Starting to fill in the grass....
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These are all the pencil colors I’m using for the grass. Prismacolor pencils.
If you’re surprised by some of these colors, like the yellow ochre and “artichoke” (greenish brown), the next pic shows how they add to the look of the grass.
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This is why I choose this particular paper color. It’s easy to make grass with some random grass-shaped pencil strokes when working on green paper.
I work on the grass in sections. I always start by putting in the highlights of the grass with cream color. I work fast, just throwing down slashes of color, moving my hand in random directions. Next I put in the other colors one by one throughout the area: two shades of mid-tone green (one cool green, the other warm and slightly darker), two shades of yellow ochre (sparingly, it’s green grass not dead grass), artichoke (greenish brown) also very sparingly, and a few jots of dark green where there are shadows, like between her feet. And last I scribble over the whole area randomly with a bright green that is the color of a healthy green lawn in sunlight….covering some of the other colors (like the cream slashes partly covered with green at the bottom center) but missing many of the others. Just scribbling around randomly, giving the section an overall color of bright green that pulls all the slashes of separate colors together. You can see all of those separate colors in this pic.
Then I start the next adjoining section with that same progression of pencil colors. I have begun by putting in the two sections of grass around Zelda’s front feet and back feet, because I have to work carefully where the blades of grass are touching or overlap Zelda’s finished feet, as you see in this close-up. Then I work quickly for the rest of the grass as I work outward from her feet and legs.
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Next I filled in the area under Zelda, connecting the two patches of grass I created around her feet. I did 3 sections to fill this area. Connecting each one as I went along. They sort of flow into one another when doing a grass lawn. It doesn’t have any discrete edges like a figure does.
Notice I made sure to include a shadowed area under Zelda, using more dark green pencil than in the brighter areas. It wouldn’t look realistic to portray the grass all the same light greens without darkening under a figure. There will also be a shadow extending forward from her front feet: the cast shadow from her head.
You can see where I lightly sketched out the oval around where Zelda is standing. I will fill that area with grass and then fade it out at the edges into the plain green paper.
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The grass finished.
This how the whole artwork looks now, the full sheet of paper, scanned.
Now you can see how Zelda’s shadow, including the shadow of her head extending forward on the grass, “ties” Zelda to the ground. Without that shadow, she would not look like she was realistically standing on the grass. Any time you portray a full-body figure, there is always a darkening of the surface they are on, beneath the body. It’s the way you connect them to the scene they are in, to make them look like they are “in” the scene, not pasted on it. If you look at Pic 1 in this album you can see how I sketched out Zelda’s shadow with green pencil. You need to plan for the shadowed area beneath a figure when you are doing the surface around them. That will dictate the darker pencil colors you choose to use there.
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A close-up of the pencil strokes that make up the grass. As you can see, it doesn’t take many pencil strokes to create grass on green paper. The paper color does a lot of the work. This is the right edge of the oval of grassy lawn, where it fades out to the plain green paper.
I explained the 10 pencil colors I used to create the grass, and how I throw down quick slashes of color in random directions to create the look of a lawn, starting with the lightest color. This pic shows how I add the darkest colors (the last ones I add) in between the lighter pencil strokes to make shadowed areas.
I portrayed Zelda very detailed, but I do the grass much looser. There is no sense spending days and days capturing every blade of grass as realistically as a dog’s coat is done in a portrait. Viewed from a few feet away, the finished grass with all these random strokes looks just like realistic grass.
Zelda portrait in progress 11
Previously I described how I exaggerated the highlights on top of Zelda’s nose in order to make it stand out from the green background. To stand out from the background, the edges of a figure have to be either lighter or darker than the background.
When I sent the final jpg of the finished portrait to Diane for approval I asked if there was anything that needed to be adjusted. Diane said, “I think it looks amazing – but could you make one little tweak? The fur at the back part of her nose almost looks white. Can you darken that and her entire nose just a bit?”
Diane was right about Zelda’s nose being too light. When I looked at the reference photo I could see how that happened. In the photo, behind her nose (the end of her nose) is a very dark bush. So her nose looked light against that dark bush, and my eye saw it as being lighter than it should be.
To fix that, I had to darken it a lot, far past what was in the photo with light reflecting off the shiny skin on top of her nose. If I had made it accurate to the photo, it would have been the same value as the background: different colors (grey, and green) but with similar values — value refers to the lightness/darkness of a color. Zelda’s nose would disappear into the background. So I took it far into the darker values. Darker than the background color, so it stands out nicely.
Zelda portrait finished!
I’m often amazed at the eloquence with which my client writes about their loved one. Diane’s words helped me capture Zelda’s strong and true Doberman heart. Below is the story Diane told me about Zelda.
“I could write a novel about her.
I had always heard stories of “heart-dogs”
but didn’t know what that meant before I knew this dog.
I met Susan at a local Doberman Club meeting before Zelda was born. I talked to her and told her that I had owned dogs my entire life but Dobermans were always my favorite breed – I just had never had an opportunity to own one. I did Greyhound rescue for 20 years and when I lost my last Greyhound I decided that I wasn’t going to waste any more time and my next breed would be Doberman. I had 2 rescue Dobermans. I had been going to dog shows since I was a child. This was an interest that I shared with my Dad and something we did almost annually until he got too sick to continue. I just woke up one day and decided that I wanted a show dog. So when I talked to Susan I told her that I was looking to purchase a show prospect. Her response “I’m about to breed one of my bitches – I’ll breed you a show dog.” I regularly visited her and watched as Xena’s pregnancy progressed. I’ll never forget the day that Susan sent me an early morning text – “the puppies are coming!” I had taken my mom to a Dr appt and we literally sat in the car in the parking lot of her Dr office while Susan sent the first text – “black boy.” I prayed so hard that there would be at least one female (and was also hoping for a black) because I had a rescue male that did NOT like other male dogs.
Xena ended up having 2 females. From the beginning – I went over every weekend to interact with the puppies. Susan told me from day one – don’t get attached. She wanted to be sure that I ended up with the pick female and since this wouldn’t be even a good guess until they were older – she drilled that into me every time I came over. On or around about day 7 – I picked up the purple collar female and turned her around to look at her face. I looked at Susan and asked “hey – when do they open their eyes?” She informed me that it was WAY too early. Umm…. I turned her to face Susan – her eyes were open. From that day on – try as I could to not get attached – Zelda picked me. I would go over and sit down on the ground and Susan would open the door to the house and the puppies would come spilling out. Without fail – Zelda would race to me first. She would stand on her hind legs and lick my chin. She would then spin around and straddle my leg and actually growl at the other puppies as they came running over! Susan told me later that she just prayed that purple collar would be the pick because we were already forming a bond – try as hard as we might not to.
When the puppies were finally evaluated – turned out that purple collar actually WAS the pick and from then on she was my baby. Zelda is one of the smartest dogs that I’ve ever encountered but is VERY alpha and VERY opinionated! If she doesn’t want to do something – good luck getting her to do it. But from the first time that she opened her eyes – she stared into my soul and I’m convinced that if I could read her mind – I would know without doubt that in Zelda’s mind – her ONLY reason for being on this planet is to be my companion and do her very best to keep me safe. She went through several handlers when she first started her show career but she never meshed with them and I began to think that her show career was over before it ever started. She hated being in the ring. We decided to give her one more try and Susan approached Paula about handling her for us. I drove Zelda to Glen Rose, Texas to meet Paula. From that point on – it was clear that Paula had the right strength and attitude to show this smart, alpha bitch and to bring out the best in her. Unfortunately, Zelda was SO attached to me at that point that I couldn’t even be in the same building when she was showing or Zelda would be more interested in finding me than in paying attention to Paula. So, I sent her on the road for 18 months (only seeing her a few times during that period) and it just about killed me because I missed her so much! But that was the only way that I was going to give her her best shot at showing to her potential. Thank goodness people were live streaming shows during that time because I was still able to watch her in the ring. Susan and I still shake our heads and can’t believe that she garnered the success that she did – coming from “dog show amateurs” to finishing her show career ranked # 14 in the country!
She came home from Nationals that year – retired. To this day – as a 9 ½ year old – she is still just as alpha and just as opinionated. But she has a softness about her now. She is a little grey in the muzzle but still looks pretty good for a dog her age. We do nosework together once a week. But when she looks me in the eyes – and does a soft, slow blink – I swear that we see into each other’s very core. I’m actually getting misty just typing this. I’ve loved every dog that I’ve ever owned – but NO dog ever did or ever will hold a candle to the depth of love that I have for Zelda (and feel pretty sure that she feels for me). She is my constant companion, friend and confidant. She sleeps in bed with me and nestles up against my back – right between my shoulder blades. She knows when I hurt. She knows when I’m sad. She’s just a one in a million that will take a piece of my heart when she finally decides to head for the Rainbow Bridge. But I have no doubt that at some point – we will be together forever.
Now I’m going to stop typing (because I’m sitting here at my desk at work with a tear rolling down my cheek) and I hope that I’ve left you with an impression of this crazy, smart, alpha, loving dog that I call by her nickname… “Duddy”… ❤
"Zelda"
BISS TT GCHS CH Lookout Tawee v. Radiant CGC, WAC, Top Twenty contender 2018
Commissioned by Doberman breeder Susan Ramos as a gift to Zelda’s owner Diane Tennison.
A satisfied client: Diane and Susan with Zelda, posing with her framed portrait.
🎨 Prismacolor pencil on “Light Green” Canson Mi-Teintes paper, 17 x 20 inches.
From a photo by Susan Booth.
Zelda is an example of a "Full Body" portrait, with "simple background" added.
See more examples of my FULL BODY portraits and their prices HERE.
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