Magnolia Blossom acrylic portrait magnolia flowers

Meet Buddy, this is the new dog that I am working on and he is a Great Pyrenees, which is a herder and a very large dog.  Hi to the ladies from the quilting group and I hope that you enjoy watching him come to life (I hope) as I work through the process.
My friend Terri provided me with a couple of pictures and this one was the clearest for a reference and really a nice cropped shot, although I have to admit it's quite an unusal dog pose.  Buddy is a lover, a real in-your-face guy whose owner recently had heart surgery so I am hoping she recognizes him from this close up as that is probably how she sees him often.  He went to visit at the hospital several times and gave her a tremendous lift just full of love.  I am making some of him up as I go based on other photos of him but also another Great Pyrenees she owned, so am hopeful that he will really come out looking like Buddy with a complete head and chest area.  Seems it is quite natural for them to lay their ears down flat to their head when they are relaxed although they can be floppy as well when they are alert.
This is a new technique for me, but thought it would give the best long, soft fur and he is shades of white, greys and blacks.  You can see my quick first try sample to show Terri on the reference piece of what I was going to try to end up with and get her approval.  This is not a drawing, but a painting using several hardness of black and white charcoal pencils, black charcoal powder and white pastel.  My husband always calls my pencil work drawings, not me, I say paintings, but this time I am actually using a brush with the black charcoal powder for the initial gray base laydown and then picking out the hair growth direction with putty eraser, tortillions, black charcoal pencil and layering white charcoal or pastel as the top layer because it floats on the black charcoal powder and pencil work.
We'll see how it goes and how much more I accomplish tomorrow.  Because it is pretty slow and tedious, you work only small areas at a time to full completion because this media has a tendancy to walk off, smudge, smear, and all other kinds of fun things, so I get a little antsy and will need to focus and work on him in short bursts.
Thanks for stopping by and feel free to leave me a comment.