Peter and Hobbes

My husband and Hobbes :)

This is a special piece for me. I feel their love radiating from the painting.

I gave this to my husband for his 50th birthday.

Technical

In the beginning I wanted to try using a colour triad for the first time. The plan was for one colour to be the orange of Hobbes, another the background and the last his shirt. However, after putting down the colours I wasn't happy with how it looked and decided to change it.

Instead I went for a "Rembrant-like" background colour. This brought more harmony to the colours and I like the atmosphere it brings.

Painting his skin colour was quite the challenge. I still have so much more to learn with skin colours and I struggled for quite a while. I found throwing in some bolder colours to be helpful and I'm pleased with the overall likeness.

His arms were also challenging. I tried to paint his arm hairs, but it came out more like dirty marks. Eventually I simplified it by removing detail and put more of the background/foreground colours over it to make it less prominent.

Using the background/foreground colours to make areas less prominent was my plan from the start of the piece. I wanted to use this to make the painting easier to complete as not all elements would need to be rendered fully. Additionally I was interested in what effect it would create, and I'm happy with the result where it gives a dreamlike quality.