Black Standard Poodles

Last Christmas I was also commissioned to do two Standard Poodles.
I really struggled because I like to have photos to work from that show their personalities.
Instead I had photos where one dog consistently turned his head away from the camera.

They also had been groomed in a non-traditional way, which was basically a shave down but they were left with beards...like Billy-Goats.
Hmmm....Yeah.
So I painted them and the client said that while she liked the painting,
it didn't look like them.

So I asked for more photos.
I did another painting and I, myself hated it.
So I just quit hunching over and painting so "tight" and just leaned back and did it.
I added some blue and purple to the black and came up with the painting at the top of this post.
I'm happy with the results. I'm not sure if the client was, although she claimed she was.
Yep, BLACK dogs are hard. But dogs with bad photos are even HARDER.