Welcome to our latest oil pet portrait of Chow Murphy. The oil painting of Murphy was commissioned by a returning client in the USA and it’s always a pleasure to work with him again! Gary has asked Nicholas to paint many portraits of their animals over the years and we are always delighted to hear from him.
Gary commissioned a 20 x 16 inch portrait in oils on linen canvas. Nicholas very cleverly amalgamated two photos to create this portrait. This allowed our client to have a full head and chest portrait with lots of detail.
Oil Pet Portrait of Chow in Progress
Here are a lovely collection of photos of the portrait in progress. I have taken a photo of the first stage below, where Nicholas has drawn out the portrait and also started to block in the basic sienna brown layers to cover the canvas.
This is another angle of the portrait showing Nicholas with his paintbrush working at blocking in.
Once the blocking in stage had been created he started adding the base colours of Murphy in, and making sure the background colours matched with the overall colour scheme too.
You can also see that Nichols has started to add some of the fine detail around the face and muzzle. There is a lot of work to do as this is a big portrait. It takes time to create something like this.
You can see the size of Nicholas’s brush here adding detail under the ear. So it is a small brush with lots still to do and plenty of hours work left!
You can see the painting is coming together quite nicely now, there is a lot of detail over the main head and chest and now it’s a case of the finishing details. Portraits also never have a set time, they just take the time they do. That’s why it’s so difficult for us to give an eta of a portraits start date a number of months ahead of time. If clients would like a portrait for a specific date, they really need to give us lots of time to get everything organised for them, especially if its a large painting like this.
Happy Client
Melanie/Nicholas,
For a fifth time you all have provided us with a degree of closure regarding the loss of a beloved pet. Nick’s rendition of Murphy in oil is stunning, that look was one Murphy gave me many times. Everything about the painting is beautiful, Murphy’s color, his look, the framing. We really like the convex framing. I hope you both know that coming to you on five different occasions is a testament to what Barb and I think of you both as artists. I do not believe any amount of money can improve on what you all have done for us.
With love, gratitude and best wishes always,
Gary and Barbara
Oil Pet Portrait of Chow Murphy – Framed
Finally our client opted for the traditional flat frame and we think it works really well with Murphy’s colouring. We spent a long time making sure we chose the correct moulding. Not all of the mouldings went with Murphy’s colouring and tones, so this frame works perfectly. We hope you like it and we also hope you have enjoyed reading about Murphy and his painting too!
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