zebra love goes home!

a while ago i posted about getting my first commission, but i don't recall if i posted about the second one that came in at the same time.  if not, here is the news again.

this is to be for a young family with a soon to be baby boy.  i have known cassie, the mommy to be, for her whole life.  literally.  cassies mom, nancy, and i were room mates in the hospital after having our babies!    nancy and i have been best friends since that day, the connection was so strong.  cassie is like a daughter and friend all wrapped up into one for me, and now i was being commissioned to paint something for her new baby boy.  talk about honored!

the new nursery is a 'jungle theme' with monkeys, trees, and a giraffe mural painted on the walls, and they thought maybe a lion or zebra would go well.  i had an idea for a painting i had wanted to try, a pose that one of our childhood ponys had in a photo, so i asked cassie if that would work and she agreed.

* unfortunately i think i trashed my scanned photo of the pony while cleaning out my completed paintings reference photos.  and i'll never find it in my non-organized photos.  so...  imagine a very closely cropped photo of a shaggy little pony sticking it's nose close to the camera and you get the idea.  basically just a photo of his face very close, with little body showing.

i went to work sketching and planning and painting and painting over, and re-sketching, and head-scratching.  i was going on multiple reference photos- my photo of the pony and several zebra photos- as i couldn't find one that had one looking the way i wanted it to look.

i wanted the zebra to be more prominent on the canvas, 
but making the proportions right was tricky

getting more color and texture on the canvas around the zebra

the head was coming out just the way i wanted
 notice the hearts in the eyes

but the body was too long

so, i scrapped this canvas, as the background is india inks and painting over the zebra would be too noticeable.  on to zebra 2.0...

much better proportions

because i had to ruthlessly delete from both my phone and my computer to gain space, you just get the finished painting instead of progress and close-ups of his wonderful brown eyes and texture photos that i like to add...  cause, it's me, and i like close-ups of texture. 

introducing, "zebra love"

i hope Cassie, Jon, and soon-to-be born Blake have many years of enjoyment playing while zebra watches from the wall.  

until later,

jenny