Commission: Portrait

A friend asked me to make a portrait of her with her dog so I started by taking lots of photos which I whittled down and sent to her, flagging my favourites. She gave me the last word and I chose the pose which seemed most natural and loving.

I made an initial sketch in pencil 

this was fine in terms of my friend but the dog didn't look quite right so I printed the photo at the same size and traced it to see where I'd gone wrong, then redrew the dog.

Unfortunately I forgot to visually document the following stages: new pencil outline; charcoal, acrylic washes, more charcoal. 

The finished portrait, which my friend likes very much.