Pet Portraits in Oil

Here is the next stage of Murphy & Lily's portrait - I've been working on the background, adding hints of blue and light to the cloudy sky, blending the foliage behind, and painting in more grassblades (I keep starting on Murphy's side and work my way over to Lily but never actually finish in one sitting, which is why the left side grass is a lot more 'done' than the right hand grass.)

I've really loved painting these two dogs so far, because they are both so nice and I see Murphy all the time on the canal. His owner, Roy, asked for the background to be a canal scene, which I was worried about at first because its often best to keep portrait backgrounds as neutral as possible so attention is not drawn away from the dog, but I think the canal scene looks quite nice, and the colours arn't too strong either.

Next, I'm going to add fine details to Murphy's face, and Lily needs another layer of block colours.