I cheat when I paint pets

Nakita’s face angle was tricky to capture, but it’s true to her photo. I repainted this cute dog a number of times to get her smile right.

Nakita was the last custom dog painting I ever drew free handed. I spent extra hours repainting her doggy smile. I learned quite a lot from painting her…including that 

Cheating with a grid is ok!

• When I was a kid, I wasn’t any good at those “duplicate the drawing on the other side of the grid” puzzles.
• ​I thought free hand was the best authentic way of drawing. Yes, I was a drawing snob!
• Using a grid to draw is NOT cheating! 
• Grids are TOOLS! Tools are allowed!
• Artists through history even made grids using string and wood in order to draw a landscape before and during a painting!!!! Google it! 
• If MASTER artists used grids, why was I suffering by repainting and remeasuring a cute dog’s face over and over and over again? 

I now begin every custom pet painting with a grid.
If you’d like to see some of the custom dog and cat paintings I’ve done, please visit my webpage about them. Click on these sentences to see and get a free ebook of how to work with me for your custom pet painting.