Painting No 3 - Phoebe (Unfinished)

This is our dog Phoebe. The picture is unfinished as, still being a slave to the detail, I'm waiting to get hold of a large copy of the photo from which I copied this.

For this picture I tried following a technique from several Helen Van Wyck videos I borrowed from my mother. This involved sketching out the basic shapes and high and low lights using balck and white acrylic paint (as it dries very quickly) then refining the details and colours on top of that.

My starting sketch, which I did deliberately very loose, was hilarious.

The next stage was a bit better.

I eventually achieved something that actually looks like our dog and not just 'a' dog (althought the eyes are bit goggley)so maybe there's something in the approach.