5 - Napoleon Chillin'

 
Napoleon Chillin' 6 x 6 Oil on hardboard $15 - Buy it here.
He is one of the seven Pekingese dogs my family owns. He’s the first two with his half brother, Alex, who are the oldest, now at 7-8 years. This painting taught me to figure out how to blend between the dark brilliant blue with the light peachy cream. I’ve learned to deal with darks first then blend the edges with a lighter color as that’s easiest. Tried with dark on light, the dark becomes really light too fast and it doesn’t look good. I had to keep cleaning my brush well to fix that. Then I had the urge to dry brush fur textures around his cheeks and eyes. It was fun but not the look I was going after but it looked good otherwise! I also did super dry brush in the beginning to figure out my proportions of his face, this technique really helped me.