Just finished this painting. The obvious challenge of painting Bingo was all the curly hair. A short-haired animal is easier because the anatomical shapes are readily seen and light and darkness define the contours. But a lot of hair disguises the body shape and throws light all over the place. Eyes are always an important detail and his eyes blend into the shadows and hair color so I had to create a very light photo reference to work from and there still wasn't much detail, so I had to emphasize what I could see.
As always, each painting is another step in the lifelong learning curve of being a painter. There's always points where I start wishing there was sat nav for artists to find their way through a painting. My method of dealing with getting lost is to take a break and do something totally different and come back to it or look at it in a mirror or upside down. Sometimes taking a picture of it helps, just anything to see it differently. Despite some moments of freaking out I'm pretty chuffed with how Bingo turned out.
