Barney is a very sweet labradoodle. He is a first generation cross and has quite an unusual coat, with a wiry fur and the most adorable little scraggly beard. Due to the nature of Labradoodles, one labradoodle portrait can look very different from another! There is such diversity in how they can look, and of course every labradoodle will have their own personality.
Barney is a fun dog, quite puppy like, despite being 7. He’s ever so friendly and was quite happy for me to take his photograph, as long as he was paid in dog treats. We were going to be creating 2 labradoodle portraits, so we needed a range of photos of him so then a choice could be made as to which two to use for his portrait.
Labradoodle Portrait - Getting the photos.
I have written many blog posts about pet portrait photographs, to help you all in achieving the best photo of your pet for their pet portrait. It’s good to think about what kind of portrait you would like, full body, head and shoulders, or lying down etc. Other things are whether you want them with their mouth open or closed.
Using my treats to get Barney the Labradoodles attention, allowed me to get him to concentrate on me and look where I wanted him to. It was a pleasant day with sunlight and some clouds. Nice and bright but not too harsh light.
Barneys coat colouring was lovely, with a huge amount of colours and tones in it, from pure white to the lovely apricot in his ears. It was important to get a photo for his pet portrait that showed these colours accurately.
I took a range of photos, making sure to be nice and level with his head, I took a range of different compositions for this labradoodle portrait, so those who were commissioning his pet portrait had a range to choose from.
Labradoodle Portrait - The Drawing
I was actually commissioned to create two separate portraits. One for his owner and another for his dog sitters, who spend a lot of time with Barney. We ended up choosing two different portraits from two of the photos above. Both showed different parts of his personality and character.
Here you can see the finished labradoodle portraits, with their mounts. We changed the details on his collar to instead include his name to be more personalised. I love the contact of his fur with the red of collar and the greens of the background. It creates a cohesive looking portrait.
If you are interested in commissioning your own labradoodle portrait, please do click the button below to find out more about the commissioning process.