Well it's all finished! Fianly! I can honestly say that i have been looking forward to this day for a long time. There are just those times, you know the moment you start a certain piece that it will be a LONG ride! It certainly was for this puppy! The background was super tricky for me to decide on. I ended up going with the bright red to pop the Perogie and the skulls. It was totally not how i was picturing it but ya know, that's just how they turn out sometimes. A few people have actually said that the texture reminds them of pomegranate seeds, which i can see as well now! haha - At the bottom i have included some photos of the medium i had to mix up, soooo many containers of it, and also an intense workout for the arm mixing it all up. It so closely resembled icing, wanted to eat some very badly! 

I had been commissioned in the past to do a massive portraits before (ya know that giant Bruce Lee one, 8ftx8ft) WELLL somehow in my fleeting moments of ambition i thought, "how much fun would it be to paint another huge 4 panel painting again?!?!". 
Result = me starting this 4 panel painting of this sweet pooch, Perogie. It's on 4 separate 3ft by 3ft canvases, so not as massive as Bruce Lee but man i tell ya, this one is way more difficult! I really don't know what i was thinking! I know i'm gong to be incredibility happy with it once i'm done it but to 'squeeze' in this painting before i attempt the next one on my waiting list was not the most ideal call (by the way, the next commission consisting of 4 people, 2 separate wedding photographs of each sets of parents from the couple who's commissioning it. Its a pretty intense one since the photos are really old and will require a lot of guesstimating) SO now you can see why i'm asking myself why on earth did i start this 'just for fun' project in the middle of some pretty serious ones! hahah o well! 

Ok, so right now i'm painting the 5th value of my Perogie one. (Side note- a 'value' is just a shade of gray, so if i start with black and add little bits of white to that black each time i tint it and it's a different 'color' its actually a different 'value', just if you're wondering why i call them values) With my style of pop arts i try to get at least 6-12 values of gray in there, the bigger the canvas the more values i can squeeze in there and they always have black and white to. So that means i'm about half way done it. I've enjoyed most of working on it, especially the section of canvas with his adorable wanna-bite-it-off face! What a cutie! 

Today was a tough and challenging day working on it. At that halfway point i almost always wish i never started them, its a beautiful curse a lot of artist are under. So i just have to get over this midway hump, keep pushing though and once i get down to those last two values i'll be looking at it in a different light....... i hope! haha 

The background..... i have given it a little thought, and this is what i'm thinking. Watercolor! I love trying new things on these ones i do for fun so i wanted to try something a little off my beaten path. Well, i lie, I've done it a few times on canvas but nothing in this scale so we will see how it turns out! :P I'm thinking mint green fading into a paynes gray! ooo lalala sexy Perogie!  OOOO man will i ever be cheesed if it ruins the whole portrait of him I've been slaving away on though! Knock on wood! 
So in the meantime here are some progress pictures.....

O and here's the reference photo that i'm using :D please ignore my gross painted up housecoat!