Bodie is completed!

K9 OFFICER 

BODIE!

Here it is step-by-step.

First, the drawing.  

As you may or may not know, I like to work from my iPad, as it gives me so many advantages to creating the best portrait I can.  I can zoom in for detail, the light it emits gives me brightness in my pastel portraits, and the clarity is amazing.  If you haven't worked with an iPad or a computer screen to do your artwork, I highly recommend it!

First features I like to put in are the eyes, it breathes life into the subject, then the mouth, I just love to do mouths!  Finally the nose, which seems to be my personal hardest feature to develop.  

Next, I like to add in some color and also when I do add in some color, I make the strokes in the direction the hair flows.  This dog's got a lot of hair, so every chance I get to help aid my quest to do his hair justice, I will!

Next, I begin on his muzzle and teeth, throw in some grass on the side, and start the hair on the left side under the tongue.  There's a badge in there and a silver ring which is part of his collar.  I need to put in both, the contrast of gold and silver will be interesting.  I also started to define his neck a little bit, and the one ear.  

Here comes the difficult part, to follow the "pattern" Bodie has in his hair.  If I get this wrong, it won't look like him, kind of like doing a leopard with its spots or a giraffe with its pattern, you must get it right.  Take time to concentrate on what joins what, colors, direction of the hair, etc.  

Slowly add in hair, working on small areas at a time.  I tend to zoom in with my iPad when I just can't seem to see it from the whole picture and it truly helps.  I find German Shepherd's ears so much fun to do.  The blackness which outlines the feature, needs the softness of the inner ear with its pinks, whites and creams.  

I can't stress enough the importance of watching how you put the strokes down in the correct direction, because it forms the structure of the face!  Take your time!  

It's signed, but now it needs to be preserved for shipping.  I can't stress the importance of this enough.  Without proper preserving, pastels will fall off the paper, perhaps smudge, or worse.  I use Krylon Workable Fixative and spray it quite a few times, but I have to tell you, I am about a foot away when I'm spraying it, I spray side to side and up and down BEYOND the actual portrait.  I let it dry (under a ceiling fan to make the smell bearable) and spray it again and again...with time in between each layer of fixative.  For years there have been debates on what kind of preservative to use, this just works for me.  I've never, ever, in the thousands of portraits I've done or have helped former students create and preserve, have a problem with Krylon Workable fixative.  I've tried others over the years, for example the non-odor type (what a joke that was, it smelled worse!), and other brands, even hairspray (which is simply thinned out lacquer), but hairspray is CHEAP and designed for HAIR, not for preserving artist quality work.  Hairspray can form small dots all over the painting when applied.  Why chance it for a few dollars?  Purchase Krylon Workable Fixative.  It's not cheap but it's worth it's weight in gold for quality.  A can lasts a long, long time.  Oh, and also spray it while the portrait is on the easel, NEVER spray down onto the painting if it's flat on the floor, you're asking for trouble. 

I think he looks quite handsome!  Now I need to wait for Officer Randy, his handler, to send me a good write up on him, as he just got a prestigious award from the State of California, and Officer Randy needs to send me the information.  To motivate him to get it to me, I told him I'll send out the portrait as soon as I get the information.   

Gosh, Bodie is a cutie for sure!  Don't you think?  

All that, and he's a hero too!

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Bodie took so long to do because I got sick with sinusitis, which if you've ever worked in pastels, know you can't put the two together!  Then, when I was nearly better, I went on a ten day trip to California (to L.A...near Bruno's home but didn't get to meet up with RJ), and to Frisco which is where Bodie was to get his reward but the timing wasn't right.  But that's okay, I'm not in this to meet the dogs or the officers, I'm in this to make the officers know someone out there feels for the pain you went through while your dog was injured, it's just something I like doing.  I don't have an agenda, I just love creating.  I feel it's a "calling" for me.  

My personal thanks to my friend of 40 years (we met in high school), who's name is Jamel Reissinger, as she's the $$ behind it all.  She pays for all the shipping.  Wonderfully, my local UPS store works with me to give me the best possible prices for shipping, however, their white tubes for shipping are a bit pricey.  So Jamel found a place online where they are much less expensive.  

All this, and during the creating of BODIE, I am packing up my house and studio and moving to a new home.  We are downsizing, and I can't begin to tell you all the donating I've done of art supplies I no longer use...as well as other crafty stuff, like scrapbooking supplies, beading, and more.  I'm honing in on what I love to do, pastels, oils and acrylic...gave away all my watercolor blocks and paper to a friend who is an art teacher in another town and she dispensed it to students she knows can't afford the quality products I had.  They're getting a chance by using good supplies!  I also donated my pen & ink supplies to a student I saw his work at a local studio, who I learned from someone who knew him comes from a poor family, and instead of using pen & ink all the time, he would use Sharpie Markers.  Talent with the wrong supplies...well, I corrected that real fast!

Years ago when I owned an art supply store, I used to have a Saturday morning children's art class, and the kids were spoiled rotten using the true artist supplies, when they would go back to school, they saw firsthand how the school's equipment was simply crap.  But, it's not the teacher's fault, my friend who is a teacher in the school system told me, she had 900 students to purchase art supplies for, and was given $1000.  Now you'd think that's a little over a dollar a student, but what you fail to realize is it's worse than that...because this $1000 they give the art teacher has to last the whole year through!  Nine months of classes.  For many students, that's 26 classes in the year (for those who have class only once a week), but for many, it's 181 days of class scheduled time for a little over a dollar per student per year.  

So if you think of ever making a donation to a local school, forget the sporting departments, they get PLENTY of money...it's the art department that gets slighted.  Just ask any art teacher what you can donate to her or his classroom, and they will gladly tell you what they would appreciate.  

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