Another portrait that I did for a Christmas gift was this handsome Lhasa Apso with a devil-may-care attitude. It was a challenge to get those eyes right, because they were often hidden behind his fur, but in the end I did get them right, and got an approval from Ike’s human dad, “Yep, that’s Ike!” he said.
Ike’s portrait was a gift from a daughter to her parents. Speaking of love and of a connection of hearts, pet-portraits do bind families together – because pets are loved by everyone in the family equally, and they love everyone in the family equally.
I really really wanted to draw the Ike that his human family sees. If you notice, you’ll see that the reference image has a fringe of hair that covers his left-eye. I thought and thought and in my heart I knew that when the family would see Ike, they’d ignore the fringe and see both his eyes. I looked at his other pictures, and decided that I’ll pat the fringe down in the portrait. When I heard from the client on the scan, I was glad I did 🙂
Shafali's Pen & Ink Portrait Art 