I've been busy creating portraits for Christmas presents - like I'm sure most artists do at this time of the year. I finally finished a portrait one for some friends who recently took a trip to Japan. They sent me this photo from their trip.

I did these two tonal studies to try to identifying the lights and darks in the photo - apart from all those beautiful fall colors.

To decide between the two versions, I decided to do some watercolor thumbnails to factor in the colorful background.

After taking an informal poll of my kids and husband, and based on these thumbnails, I decided to paint the portrait with the family further away and more of the Japanese scenery/background showing. Here's the final version.

And I also painted this portrait of my friend's dog, Tori, who passed away at a few days ago.  

And, after many tonal studies, I completed this portrait of my girls for my mother-in-law. 

And, finally, a portrait of my brother's dog, Butters, who passed away at Thanksgiving.

Have you also been busy creating artwork for Christmas presents?