Do you see what I don't see

[Patricia Joyce]

I am almost ready to call this one finished. It is a posthumous dog commission and I was sent a very little 4 x 6 color photo so you can imagine the struggle I had with flatness. I also wanted to work in charcoal because of her jacket which is one of those fuzzy things. So I thought the charcoal would help with that effect. My second challenge was that she was holding a HUGE ugly leash handle and I wanted it to look like she was hugging her dog. The leash was draped all over the dog, so I worked to take it out and insert a hand!! I don't know, I feel I have overworked everything.

Any thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated. This is a small piece, the client did not want it any larger that what would fit in an 8 x 10" frame for her daughter's desk.

Thanks for looking
Patty

[Patricia Joyce]

The actual drawing is not quite so contrasty. I have a hard time photographing charcoal.

[Steven Sweeney]

At first glance, in terms of finish, I was going to say, "It's done. Leave it alone."

And that may still be true, though after looking a little longer, I find that I can't quite make out what's going on with the dog's ear, and it's a bit distracting. The dark form that crosses over the top and drops down to a pointed end is confusing me. Is that part of the ear, or a stray section of leash?

Perhaps posting even the "poor" reference photo would help clarify that.

[Patricia Joyce]

This bothered me also and it was very hard to read in the phot which sent me to the library to look at boxers Here is a cropped image of the ear. Tell me what you would do?

Thanks, Steven

[Steven Sweeney]

Okay, a tough one. A boxer that never had his/her ears trimmed to the "pointed" shape we usually associate with the breed.

Sorry, I'm not at a computer with image manipulation software, so I can't play around with this. I'm wondering if taking the value of the inner part of the ear way down, reducing the contrast with the outer, "furry" part, would help the form read better.

[Patricia Joyce]

Thanks, Steven, I will play with it a bit more. I have never seen an ear like this and now I know why the books I looked at were no help at all!

[Steven Sweeney]

Whoa, check this out:
YouTube Boxer

Freeze it at about 23 seconds and you'll get a VERY good idea of what you're dealing with here.

It may be that just lightening the value of the dark perimeter form will do the trick.

We're kind of sidling over into the "pet portrait" area, so that's probably about all I'll say about this, except that the matter of cropping ears and docking tails is extremely controversial, the practice being largely a "show dog" thing, so that's probably why you found relatively fewer images of "natural" ears.

[Allan Rahbek]

Pat,
I think that ,what's cheating your eyes, is that the photo was taken with a flash, so that the dark shadow in the ear has been lit. Normally the ear would be dark inside.

Edit:
This reference is more complex than first thought.
Notice the sun light on the girl - it's coming from the back, left - ten o'clock .

You see her cast shadow on the top of the dog's head. But you only see a narrow stripe of the sun light because the nearer of the dog's head is into a shadow from a tree or something.
The reason why it is so light is the flash light. You also see that the girl is heavy lit from the flash.

Stevens link was very helpful, it shows how the ears are hanging down. Maybe you could change the tip of the ear a bit and let it hang down in front in stead of behind the main ear?

[Patricia Joyce]

Hi Alan,
I believe the photo was taken outside in strong sunlight and the highlights are completely blown out. I always say I will not accept such images, but then the check comes and, well, we all have to eat. I finished this up. You can see it "down the line".

Steven, what a hoot that you found this YouTube. You are a gem! And it really helped answer the puzzle...