I interrupt this step by step demo to show you Sofie!

Here's the gorgeous Sofie, who I mentioned I was waiting for her mom to receive. Isn't she adorable? Sofie is so such a yorkie Yorkie, you know? She's got those eyes, that laugh, the silky fur, and I just had to show you! (I'm still working on my step by step demo of Carol and Madison and will upload my next step soon)

What was especially fun about Sofie's portrait was working very closely with her "mom" to create a portrait that had a lot of meaning. Besides our star, Sofie, Mom wanted the beach. And could I somehow incorporate a photo of Mom as a baby with her mother? So this involved a lot of planning and thinking. I had only a tiny photo of the women and several photos of Sophie, none of which were her posing like this! I needed to put all of these components together while still keeping Sofie front and center.

I way simplified the beach scene beyond the window. And took some artistic license, which I did on purpose. With such a bright sunlit scene outdoors, the photo on the windowsill would be very dark and probably not very "readable", if I were to take the lighting absolutely literally. Same with Sophie. But I just had fun with it, with her pretty eyes, the detailed fur, the sheen of the sunlight hitting her back.

My foreground, as always, is sooo tempting to overdetail. Just enough leads us in to tell the story...a beloved pet, in a place that brings happy, relaxing memories, with a small portrait of those who love her. I could feel the love of Sophie's mom just pouring through for her mom and for Sophie as I created this work of love.

Incidentally, this was also fun for me because Sophie is the pet of a very interesting published author! What a neat thing it is to be able to meet cool people you'd never meet otherwise, brought together by art!