Giraffe. A Free-Flow Watercolour Masterclass with Jane Davies

1. Introduction: [MUSIC] Hello and welcome to this intermediate watercolor class. Today we are going to be painting this rather lovely giraffe together. They are such satisfying subjects to paint, with those lovely long eyelashes and wonderful markings. I just know you're going to fall in love with painting her and be chuffed with your results. I'm Jane Davies. I live, paint, teach and walk my lovely spaniels in the beautiful South Downs National Park, England. Over the last 15 years, I've taught myself the free-flow technique that you see today. Not having been to art school, finding my own way has been fun and sometimes daunting but has allowed me to develop my own style. This has led me to teaching others either on a one-to-one basis or as part of a group in a wonderful studio in the heart of the South Downs. I also run a successful commission-based business, painting pet portraits, and wildlife art in my own home studio. In all my classes, you will follow along in real-time where I can guide you to keeping your work loose and fresh without over-fussing. I have over 20 classes available on Skillshare now. If you're just starting out, my three beginner classes will guide you, then you'll find over 20 masterclasses covering a wide range of beautiful subjects. In each one, I share the techniques that I use in my own professional work. We have a lot of fun together and you'll gain the understanding and confidence to incorporate everything you learn into your own work. Plus I'll share a few of my tips and tricks along the way too. As ever, I've provided you with a wonderful reference photo of her along with a downloadable template for you to print out. The template gives you a stress-free drawing so you can just enjoy the painting. I'll be showing you how easy it is to paint wet-on-wet by simply gauging the paper as it dries. I'll be guiding you through sectioning areas off and adding two layers where needed to create depth and interest. Of course, I'll share many of my professional tips, tricks, and musings as we work our way through this class together. You're going to love it. If you'd like to learn more about me, or my work, please pop over to my website at janedavieswatercolors.co.uk. This can be found on my profile page, along with links to my Instagram and Facebook pages. I'm very active on my social media pages, where I love sharing my art, especially on stories with many ideas, works in progress, and tales of studio life. I really hope you will share all your paintings on the Projects and Resources pages, as I love seeing your masterpieces. Don't forget, I'm here to help if you get stuck or have any questions. I want you to experience that buzz of painting in this liberating wet-on-wet loose style. Come and join me. [MUSIC] 2. Materials: Welcome along to this lovely giraffe class. As ever, I shall run through the materials I'm using today and I will start on my paints. These are all Daniel Smith watercolor paints. All these materials can be found in the Projects and Resources pages, so no neater scribbling down or try to remember them. I shall start with the lavender. Really pretty color. I don't use it a huge amount, just gives a little bit of contrast. Like genuine, one of my all-time favorites. It's a dark blue granulates beautifully along with the burnt tiger's eyes genuine. That's a lovely, soft granulating color. Transparent brown oxide. It's a really rich, warm brown and it does some interesting patterning. Sepia, again, an all-time favorite is just a good, solid dark brown that doesn't move too much. Yellow ocher, not a great one. I use huge amount, but I do I think for this coloring of her. I've gotten a little bit of buff titanium. Again, I don't use it a lot, just a little hint on the ear. I just found that just gave a little bit more body and to one side, I couldn't fit it on. There's a tiny little bit of white gouache, which we use just the tiny catch light so it's dilly amounts. Now appreciate you probably haven't got exactly the same colors, please don't panic. Use what you have. I will suggest having a rummage, picking out the colors you think are most suitable and the ones you're confident using and you know how they behave. Because to me, they all had their own characters. Grab yourself a little swatch of paper, have a little play, see what you think bends well and moves well and you'll be happy with. You don't have to pick the exact colors. I don't think as the reference photo. Obviously, she hasn't got blue or any lavender on, so don't be too confined by the colors you see on your reference photo. Have fun, just have fun. [LAUGHTER] Probably all I can stress is just enjoy it and enjoy maybe playing with different ideas. You can have a green giraffe, who knows? Anyway, before I go on. [LAUGHTER] My watercolor paper is Bockingford and it's 140 pound and that's been stretched onto a board. I'm going to put the link to this board because it's really very good. I'll let you have a look. I'm going to get it up. But it's a good way of stretching a paper. Obviously got my water. I've got a paper towel kitchen roll on screen, a rubber, and I've got a, this is a little wooden heart, but it's about an inch high and I use that just to give my board a little tilt. We don't use it a huge amount in this piece, but I do use gravity quite a lot in other pieces. Anything that's an inch or so high you can use just to give your board a little help. Brushes. I have a good array of brushes today and some very tatty ones. This poor little specimen is great for doing the mains. It's really dry and bristly. It was a good tool for pulling paint away. Or you could use a toothbrush, would have equally done a good job too. Obviously got a pencil. Just a word on pencils. Try to find something that's not going to be too strong or have something that's quite light and easy rubbed out, you really don't want to be able to see your pencil marks. bear that in mind when you pick your brushes. Pick your pencil up. Brushes I have starting none of them are very big. As you can see, she's not huge. I've got a number 8. I've got a number naught actually, probably a little bit too small, but it's just for doing the eye so it was ideal really. But you could easily do a one or two. Tiny little liner brush. Again, that was beautiful for doing the whiskers and all eyelashes. An oligo-eradicated brush. Didn't use a huge amount actually, if I'm honest, but it is a wonderful tool for taking color out. I have a hairdryer off-camera, and that's really handy just for drawing the layers as they begin to go off. Then you can carry on it and move on to your next section. Again, I've got my reference photo on an iPad. That's quite nice if you've got the extra device you can put the reference photo onto, then you can glance back and forth from that. That's very handy. As I say, all this is found on the Projects and Resources pages and along with a template which you can print out, draw around, and then you've got your good shape. Before I waffle on anymore, let's go and sketch her out. 3. Sketching Out: First thing first, we need to sketch her out. I'm going to give you a few little tips which I hope will help you. Firstly, don't be afraid to use the template that's in the project and resources pages. It's important again as ever to get the nice shapes. It just gives you a bit of a head start if you're unsure on all these sort. Once you've gone and traced around her, then we need to pop the eyes in it. Take your time. There's no hurry at this stage. If I'm doing a pet portrait or a commission piece, I will always sketch the piece out and then revisit it in 10 minutes. Because again a little like at the end you will see no errors, but little things that need adjusting that don't look quite right. So it's always worth sketching it out, coming back and just reassessing. But again, take your time. Have a look at that reference photo. Get these eyes in. Now, it's a little confusing because when you first glance at the reference photo, the eye makeup in the eye and the eyelashes all look the same. But actually, when we come to paint it, we're going to be doing the eyeball and then the makeup later. It's worth getting that eyeball in and then also sketching the makeup and those lashes in. Again, take your time. All these little angles will make a big difference to the overall painting. We got this nice little bit here. That angle which is I guess her eye socket coming in from the bone structure underneath there. Again, get the nostrils in and there's a really fun little bit where you can see her bottom lip. Get that in. She's got a lovely sweep of the neck. Actually, there's quite a lot of angle here, so it's worth to either twisting your paper or board round so you can get just a little bit of a curve. Again, it curves at the top as well. What else do we need to know? A little bit here, which is inside her ear, you can see she's got some fluff, but what we're going to do is draw the fluffing or at least a line with a fluffy is because when we're wet this area down, we're going to flick in. So you need this little area to be as white. I want to explain it better. But you want to sketch in the white bit and you don't want to sketch in where the hair end if that makes sense. Hopefully, it will come together when we start to do the ear and it will make sense, but just make sure you sketch that in there. There's this little angle here, a little bump and we do section areas off but I don't really want to then draw in this section areas off because it's just more pencil marks which we don't necessarily need. Again, this little areas will be sectioned a little bit off. This is a sort of sweep which I guess is still her head or head to the neck. Then there's this little part here which is obviously underneath her would be her cheek. Yeah, I think that's it. I don't think there's any other helpful tips but apart from keeping your pencil marks as light as you can. Now, I've gone a little darker because I obviously want you to all to see her and see what I'm doing. But for your piece, try to go as light as you can so you can see it obviously but it's not very heavy because ideally you want to draw up these pencil marks out and not see them in your finished piece. Because it will make a big difference especially to this side because we're going to keep this nice and light and we want that to almost disappear off. I think once you've got it sketched out, we will just get on and paint her. 4. Ears: Pick up your bigger brush. Let's get that nice and wet, and we're going to wet the inside of these two ears. We can do that at the same time. That's what I mean same time we will wet this and wet that rather than and that will hopefully dry a little bit actually doing them at the same time. The ear is nice and wet. Careful and make sure we haven't got any dry patches in there. You can duck your head up and down, and you'll be able to see if there's any dry patches. I'm going to go on and do a left-hand here. Same thing applies. Make sure it's lovely and wet. If it's sitting in any puddles is a little bit of a goldilocks thing. You want it just right. If it's sitting in a puddle, you'll find the paint will sit onto the top and won't move. Equally, if it's too dry, your paint won't move. If you're unsure on this process, it's worth getting a little scrap of paper and having a good old play with that because you'll quickly get an idea of the just the right amount. I picked up that, I buff titanium, little bit of lavender. I'm going to try and keep the right-hand side a little cooler, a little darker as you can see in the reference photo, the lights coming down here on the left-hand side, which is going to wake these up a bit. Sitting on my desk for a little bit. We're just going to just place. There's no brush strokes, it's just touching. Just a bit of doubling. Clean your brush. Put a little bit of lavender in there. Again, don't worry too much where you're placing these. If I'm honest there's no great lumpy lavender on my brush, but there's no actual great sense of any light or dark in there, it's just a solid color. Just anything that's pleasing really. I'm going to pop those two down. Like genuine is my very dark blue and one of my favorite paint. You haven't got it, it's worth investing. Again, we're just going to touch and allow that to just gently bleed and blend, work your way out. Keep your eye on the reference photo. You can flick your eyes back and forth and you can see roughly. It's not imperative. You get the exactly right shape. Again, it's just something pleasing. Before that dries, we want to down the paint. Just get rid of the bigger brush. I've got a tiny little rigor. I'm just going to flick these hairs in. This is what I was gobbling about when sketching out stage. Just going to flick those in, and make sure you get the right angle, obviously the hair is coming out this way. You want to get the angle right. You need to do is quite quickly after placing this darker color, otherwise the hair will look like it's stuck on. Don't squint your eyes and you can get an impression of this, the whiter area and what it should look like. I think that looks good. I'm going to hang on to this one. Actually, I can use and carry on using this with the sepia. I just want to look just a little bit of darker rim around the outside of this ear. Just to hold that color in and give it a little bit of an outline. You'd actually see on the reference photo, she's got a little bit of a darker, markings around there. That looks a bit boring. We can always pick them out of another color if it looks like it's just getting a bit samey. Is either tiger's eyes doing what tiger way it does and moving around too much. We can just move that in a bit. Anything does flow like that too quickly. You can quite easily just push it back via brush. These are quite unforgiving these paints, especially some of these tiger's eyes it's very soft, very movable. Just a little bit on top and say just lift your head away, have a look, see what you think a minute you like something. I would suggest probably leaving it at that. As I always do without fail, I then fiddle. Just, want to put a little bit of buff titanium in there. That's better. Sometimes go with your instinct. If your instinct is telling you something, then listen to it. We're going to move on to the left-hand ear. Lefts and rights are horrendous. Pick up your buff titanium and you'll have to do it again, let's put that little brush down. Pick up my bigger brush. I'm going to make sure it's nice and clean because you don't want to scrub pick up other color. Again, I'm just going to keep this one quite light so I don't want too much lavender. Hope will be enough of lavender. Just a hint. It's probably enough. Again. I'm going to pop those down. I'm going to pick up the sunlight genuine. I might have just a little bit of CPU actually. See you can use the same colors on your brush at the same time. Don't be afraid to do that. Again, I want to keep this ear just a little bit. I don't want it to be as heavy as obvious. As soon as you've got that inner ear color put that down there, pick up your little brush. We're going to flick that hair back in. Same as we did with this. Keep everything nice and light, squint your eyes. You can get an idea of how that white hair is going into the ear with a bit of one of those illusions isn't equal to screening. You can see it in, and then you lose it again. I'm going to do the same going around the rim. I'm going to pick up the transparent brown, just a bit of a warmer brown. Again, when you want just little hints, don't want too much. I might pick up. Almost haven't got enough color in here too, so I'm just going to dot a little bit of ocher in their turn my buff titanium. That squinter probably having a quiet enough too, once those pencil marks disappear, I probably won't see much of any, without to keep it lovely light. You also need to be able to see it. Lovely I think that's going to draw in nicely. Just put a tiny bit of ocher. Just the very top of that right hand here, just the colors pink between each other. We just need to allow that to dry as ever, because one you don't want to be putting hands in it to the next layer we do, it has a risk of touching these little wet area. We don't want the lovely colors we put into the ears to run into the next section. As ever, allow that to dry, you can use a hairdryer once it starting to go off a little bit, but be at eye. If you follow my classes are quite a lot to you. You know what I'm about to say, but be mindful that it's not too wet because you will blow the pigment and it will all mix up together and you'll get a little bit of a muddy, appearance. Just make sure that it's almost dry and with hair dryer to dry that very last stage of. 5. Top of Head: Once these ears are dry, we will move on to the next little bit. It would've been helpful, hasn't it? In previous classes. I'm going to just put a tiny little bit of color into you can see where I've wet down. Don't you do this, you just want nice clean water. We are going to wet down the top of her horns. I presume they're called horns. Maybe I should have looked into that before I started painting but I will call these horns. When you want to go right down like now we want to do the little brush so you can see. We want to go over the top of the eyelashes and we're going to do a line up to that hump. That's one of the forehead. Hopefully you can see the color I've put down and say, I do stress these colors only for me to enable you to see where I'm putting my water. Again, we're going to do the opposite side. It all nice and wet, make sure you haven't left any dry patches. If you have hair dried like I have just be mindful of your papers probably a little bit warm and it will dry a bit quicker. You can always just add a little bit more water if it looks a bit dry. Take your time on adding the water, say no hurry so make sure it's all nice and wet and nice and even. Put that down. We're going to start on the very tops, get this lovely dark tips. I'm not using that one I'm going to use sepia and I'm going to use a little bit, so light and genuine. A bit of a squish. I want this quite thick because I don't want it to move too much, the thicker the paint is, that's why it's nice working out the tubes because I can get a nice mount on my brush. We're just going to put that down. If it's a little bit bluey like mine has got, add a bit more sepia and just allow that to run gently. Bring it down a little bit, but you can see the dark areas we're trying to get in there. I'm going to do the opposite side. Same again, I might go a little bit brown I went a bit blue that one. II might add a little bit more brown. She hasn't got her skin if we're trying to keep this left-hand side a little bit lighter, so bear in mind to keep that, don't go too bold on the left-hand side. I get to pick up my, put those two down, I got to pick up the tiger's eye and transparent brown. The tiger's eyes are lovely, spready paints on or if I tap that in there, that's going to spread beautifully. Little bit transparent brown. Just tapping, there's no brushstrokes. On to the other side. She got a lovely sense of light here so we will spread but we won't actually put any paint in that area [NOISE] I might almost a fractionally too wet. You can see it's not moving a huge amount. I think, I've just got a tiny little bit too wet here and I'm going to suck a little bit up just to allow that paint to move. Let's pick up the ocher as well let's have those three colors in my hand at the same time, because I want to pop some ocher quite light over the top of her eyes or eyebrows quite light aren't nicer. Come down a little bit more on that, I actually went down. Keep clicking your eyes up to that reference photo. I'm getting any darker area you see in, so this called first squint. I can see has a nice line here. On this part here we actually do, do another layer so if you feel this isn't as dark as you like, don't panic too much because we do add another layer. This one hasn't so bear that in mind. If you haven't gotten enough color on the left-hand one, which we don't want a lot of but if it's looking a little sparse, then add a little bit more. Once you rub those pencil marks out, you want to almost have that lovely lost and found, there's not a lot going on. Let add a tiny little bit of lavender. This is why I end up with so many colors. I'm working in a way in all like just like a little bit of lavender in there or a little bit of this. That's why if you follow me on Instagram in any of my pet portraits, I've done, especially black dogs I can use up to 18 colors and it's just a feeling it needs something else. As I say, always trust your instincts, if you think something needs a little color or not enough, I would suggest going with your instinct. Now, I'm quite liking that, its looking pretty good. I could just like that to be a tiny bit darker because I'm aware we're not going to do any more layers there so I'm just going to put a little bit of sepia. I might pick up my tiny brush so it's not a huge painting as you can see so a little brush gives you a little bit more control. My little spaniel in here with me in the studio and I think she has just heard the post woman pull up, who then gives her biscuits so I can hear her shuffling behind me. If you can hear a shuffling dog, that's her hoping for a biscuit from the post woman. She sadly going to be out of luck. Lovely, I can see this has started to dry. This is quite wet. There's always this rather difficult stage, if you do too much fiddling when parts are drying, parts are wet you can get a little bit messy so just be careful if you get to that stage. Putting some color down and do what I want to do, actually this on this side, we want to put a little bit of dark over the top of that eyebrow. Almost there pick up that transparent brown. I might do a little bit of CPS, that's actually quite dark there, isn't it? Little brush gives you a nice little bit of control, isn't it? If you've picked up the smaller one, it's nice. I hope you can see what I mean that's eye lash or top of the eyelash and this is the brow. We will put the lines in later on, but that's for another, a little bit later on because we wet this area down again. I'm not too worried about this bit. Time to down the brushes. [NOISE] Again, that does needs to dry and the same rules apply with the ears. Be careful, let it dry naturally if you can. Again, if you want to speed it up, just make sure that is starting to get nice and dry before you. It's getting to that tacky stage before you put the hair dryer on it. 6. Lower Head: Again, once this part a little top bits dry, we can continue on, so big brush. I'm going to do the same thing again. You can see the parts I've wet down, but I say keep yours nice and clean. Nice, clean water, mine's beginning to look a little murky, but it's always worth keeping here your water clean as you can. We're going to come down and we're going to miss the two cheek areas out. Quite sure where this bit is, I think it's still her head but it goes into the neck, doesn't it? But we're going to miss that a little bit out. Up underneath. Again, we're going to miss out on this one, on the right-hand side, we're going to miss out the makeup, sorry. That's dark. You can see where the dark rim is which attaches to the eyelashes. We're going to miss that out and it doesn't matter too much if you end up wetting that down because this wouldn't really matter. Got to go round the nostrils. We're into her muzzle. Quite unusual looking at these when you actually analyze them. They are quite a weird looking animal. I did contemplate doing a whole giraffe, but really we've got such long legs. You'd have to do a huge painting, I think to get the head to any stage. You saw the size that you're worth painting. I opted just to do the head and a little bit of a neck. Once that's nice and wet, again, all same rules apply. Make sure it's nice and wet, not too wet, not too dry and no gaps. I'm going to put that down and say, hope you've gotten just a nice sheen of water. We're going to, let's pick up a tiger's eye and the transparent brown. We're going to get this dark areas in here that comes from the eye over to that hump and down the muzzle. If you've done the tiger class is not dissimilar, that's going to be quite bold. One up that, one to the eye. Just adjust the lab, don't get too frightened. It looks a bit scary, but it's all running. But we can maneuver if needed, just allow it to see what it does, see what patterns it creates you. Again, I want to make sure that left-hand side stays lighter. Tiger eye left tiny little bit, so genuine I don't want too much because it's quite heavy color. Just a little bit of strength just around the nostril. Put that down for I'm tempted to use it again. I'm going to let that move to see what it does for just for a minute. I'm going to put some ocher down on the left-hand side, just tap the sides a lovely of light on that where that light is. A little bit scary this stage, because it all feels like it's all moving around, but try your best not to panic. Let's have a little bit transparent brown a little bit there. It's a fun color, this transparent brown. I know you may not necessarily have the same as me, but it's a good color. Let's have a little bit of sepia. I know the sepia is a nice color it doesn't move too much so I can put that down straight on top. It won't move as much sepia. Then the tiger's eye is lovely, but it has a habit of wishing around a bit too much. I'm not sure I want to add it at this stage. We do another layer, so don't panic. If you don't feel like you've got enough strength for you feeling unsure what to do anymore. Then don't worry the way another layer, so you can add strength on the second layer. It's probably better to leave it to almost blend and do its own thing rather than fiddling too much. We can correct any way, we can strengthen it on the next layer. I'm quite liking how that's fallen ready. I've got this lovely line here which I need to be aware of and let's keep. Let's put that backup there as I have the ocher. I want to bear in mind keeping this a little bit lighter and softer. On the left-hand side, I'm a little bit the tiger line there as well. I squint your eyes, see what that look for that dark area. It'd be better to under paint it and do less than it would be to be more heavy handed. These stages, as I say, we're doing another layer. If you doubt leave, then I pick up my tiny brush and let's add the transparent brown. I just wanted to pop a little bit of strength around those nostrils. They're quite a bit strong color and just help define those nostrils. Genuine, just a little bit of strength down that right-hand side. So keep an eye on the shape of those nostrils. Hopefully if you sketch them out, all you have to do is for the yellow line. Now, we're going to actually put the nostrils in as well, and it's catching too many here. Just going to keep hold of let's pick up a sepia. I'm going to keep hold of the genuine and the sepia. Let's have a little bit sepia, but on my brush at the same time. You can see this brush can paint. But rare thing I don't to do much. We're just going to add that nostril and I say on the second layer we will go over this it all softens, but it's going to look a little odd to start with. We just want to paint that dark area in the same. It's just the little line really on the left-hand nostril with not a lot. Just keep it on at reference photo. Perfect and if you can start to see I coming together now. I just going to make sure I've got that. I think I've crept in a little bit of lost some of that nostril shape, but that's okay because I can take it out. I'm not going to try and do fiddle too much. You take my own advice and we need to leave it there. Lovely. Again, we just need to allow that to dry. Same rules apply for the hairdryer nothing different. Let it dry. 7. Neck: Let's do the neck next. We're going to put that lovely shadowing. Again, big brush. We're going to wet down the part you can see where the shadow is. Let's be kind to you again. This is only for me to show you where I've wet down. It doesn't really matter where the shadow is if I'm on is too much. Make sure you get that nice, gentle curve in. Again make sure it's nice and wet. All filled in. It blends out that the shadow, isn't it? But we're going to have quite a blunt end to it. We're not going to blend it out as it shown there. Making sure I've got no dry patches, so easy done. Then I'm going to pick up my lavender, my sepia. I'm going to start with the lavender. I don't want it too bold really. Just going to tip it in. I'm going to blow it around in a minute. We want it really lovely and even. A little bit of sepia, just a little bit darker at the bottom. A bit contaminated. Really has got quite contaminated. Well, it's because I've got the sepia. That will be why he's coming out brown. Let's just get rid of that. Easy. If you're using the tubes to get a little bit murky on the top, but that's better. What was I saying? Yes, we want it to be nice and even and I could tilt it, but actually I'm going to try and keep everything flat today for change. Something I don't generally do because I don't like it to be muddy looking, but I want it to be nice and an even. This is even color. I might do which you can, obviously, you don't need us draw, but you don't need to be seeing my head when I'm blowing this. But you can blow the color around, but a lot of hairdryer would do if you put the hairdryer over? I just wanted just as nice and even, because it's just a shadow. You know what we got to do next. We just call a let it dry. A tiny little bit more sepia there. No, so genuine. Just it's tiny little bit darker on the bottom but write down my brush again. That just needs to dry all on its own. Just needs to dry. Again, as I so you could put the hairdryer over that because it wouldn't matter too much if it, blows out around. Once it's dry, pick up your big brush and we're going to wet the entire neck down. Go this but keep everything light because we've already got one layer. We don't want to rustle that first layer up, but fully aligned, pull away. You went as much as you can? Again, because I've put a hairdryer over that to speed up the drying process, my paper is quite warm so you will find it will dry quicker. Or you may be lucky enough to be in a nice, warm climate. I'm filming this in February and all those spring is on its way, it's still quite cold. The idea of a better warm sunshine sounds lovely. Same thing, make sure it's all nice and wet. I'm just going to tap into more water. First we're going to put the ocher down just to get a little bit of base color of neck and then we're going to put those spots on. The spots is all about the timing. You're going to want to, if you're unsure about this Hyman or maybe how your paints will react, it's worth maybe even before you write this down. Or if you've watched this beforehand and run through it, then test it on a spare piece of watercolor paper and just try and get that sense of your paper being at the right stage to join this for those spots to move around. But hopefully I will guide you as we go through this. But if you're feeling a little bit wary of it, then just pause for a minute, go and use a little scrap of paper and just try and get a sense of how your colors move in the wet paper. Actually, [inaudible] will do I am going to put a little tilt trustee heart. I'm just going to tilt it. The paint with the ocher will run down just give us a slight sense of movement as well. Again, start at the top. I'm just going to tap. Try not to say hopefully you got a nice little shadow there. You don't want to move that around too much. You just wanted to tap is coloring. Try not to do any heavy movement with your brush. Everything's nice and light. Just want to encourage that color down. It's really lovely light on the top. I don't mind if there's only the merest hint of color on the top. Just helps keep it light. Obviously it's broken up by her mind, so it will make sense where the neck is. Want put a little ones at tigers eyes hear up a little bit tigers eye there. A little bit more strength at the bottom. See how that moves? Probably tiger's eye and burn tiger's eye and so like genuine would be my two favorite colors. Lovely. Enough for the tiger's eye. I don't want it too brown. Maybe starts pedaling on the bottom here like mine is, you can just flick it off the page. What we want to do now is just keep an eye on how this is drying. Let's say because I've put a hairdryer over it, I'm going to find my paper is going to dry quicker. Try not to put too much color down. I want to try and keep everything lovely in light into lay it flat in a minute because I don't want my spots running in any direction. I want it nice and flat. I think that's probably enough. I'm going to make sure I haven't got a lot of puddles lighter on the edge here because when I start to lay it flat, I don't want the puddles here then to run back because that will give you some watermarks which you don't necessarily need on this. I'm just going to make sure a nicely flicked off. You may find because we've tilted this area, the top is going to start drying quicker than the bottom of her neck. We're probably go end up starting to put the spots on the top. I'm using mainly sepia. I'll use a tiny little bit of satellite genuine. I'm also going to use some ocher for these might end up grabbing some transparent brown. We'll see how we go. Now it is probably a little bit hard for you to see on this camera angle, but this is starting to dry. I can see my texture of my paper is starting to appear. I can see the tops. They're not drive, but I can see it's starting to dry. I'm going to try and be patient and get this at the right stage rather than rushing. Might be a case of waiting a minute. Make sure I've neaten up my edges. I can do that while I'm waiting. This is why I should have some nice draft effects for you, but I haven't, I'm afraid. I think I'm just about ready to go on that very top. I'm just going to stay with my bigger brush for the time being. Now I want this. If you're using pens, make sure you've got a nice creamy consistency. You don't want too much water because if you add too much water, everything's going to start bleeding and blending and moving around too much. Keep your paint. If you're using tube, that's great because it'll be nice and too claggy. We don't want to worry too much about the shape really. Just get some spots in and see how that moves. You start and you think, no, that's moving too quickly at the moment. Just hang on a minute. right me, that's just about right. When you clean your brush, make sure you take that excess water off as well, because again, you don't want to be adding too much water. Forgot here, a little bit of CPR, just going to put that one down there. This has got some so like genuine. You can see how that's moving might be a touch too soon now. [NOISE]. Hope it will be alright. You have to be a judge of your own piece and see how it's moving, I'm going to pop up another one in here. Don't get too hung up on the shape. You don't try and get exactly follow the shape of each pattern on the reference photos, you just want something that is a little pleasing [NOISE] thing that adds another complexity if you were trying to follow the shape as well. Let's put one here. Say my CP doesn't move much and because we've got already got one layer underneath here, you find your paint won't move quite as much. Tiny little bit of light genuine because I want them to be cooler, stronger on the bottom side. [NOISE] Lift your head up a little bit, see how that's going. It's looking alright, and keep an eye say, this will probably be wetter than your topper area. As in change to Jane style, I've now picked up another color. I've got my transparent brown. Put one of those in. [NOISE]. Moving quite quickly. Add a little bit of CPU with it, so we can slow that down again. That's going to be alright. [NOISE] Just want it to be warmer on the top and lighter. They keep his night. Try not to get too much water added to these colors. You want it really looking creamy, so say if you're working with pans, get that lovely creamy consistency. I'm just hanging on a minute because as I say, this is a little bit wet just here. I'm going to have to be a bit patient. [NOISE] Can clean my brush, dry it off. This has just moved a little bit too much. If yours and moved, you dry your brush very gently just encourage it back in. Very gently don't know, heavy-handed, no hurry, don't panic. We'll move back in. [NOISE] Make sure the thing is not to add too much water. Again, this one's moving a little bit too much. You almost want your brush the same wetness as your paper and then you're not adding too much or then taking too much moisture off paper. Yet most looking okay. Just going to try and be patient. It's easier said than done, isn't it? When you want to get on and see, but you can see it's starting to appear now, can't you? Were filling the little cheek areas next? I think that was next on my list. I can see this is getting to a nice stage, but tiny bit with my little bit transparent brown. Don't want it too light or too different from one another, but just want that to be lighter. Say don't get too hung up on your shapes and your patterns. Just something you like or looks authentic. I suppose one's working okay. I'm going to carry on with those same colors, put another one here. Sure every giraffe has a very unique markings, probably how they can tell them apart in so I just added a little bit of sepia to that one too, so aware that starting to go a little lower. I don't want that to be cooler or darker and heavier. I guess a bit scary, doesn't it? Because now you've done a few that are working well. [NOISE] you then don't want to mess up the rest. Say, the golden rule is don't add too much water. I would say. Let's have a little bit, so like genuine to do one on the bottom here. CPS moving too much. I don't want it too blue either [NOISE] was running out of space now. Put another one there a little bit lighter, a bit transparent brown. Let's have a little bit of sepia, let's put one in here that you want. It's almost touching, isn't it to the other one? I think I'm there. I think I've done it. No great catastrophes. I'm just going to pick up my tiny brush and just make sure I've got be careful you're putting your hand in the neck area, but just want to make sure I've got that nice swing of the neck and I haven't gotten a bit tatty with my lines. I would say they are done. Once you've got those down, try not to go back and fiddle with them too much because you will, again, a little bit like I was saying here, there's certain areas that are dry and certain areas that aren't. It's very easy to if you dropped some water in there now that would all spread, you'd lose those marks and it would all go a little bit array. I need to take my own advice and stop but put these colors down. Again, I will suggest allowing that to dry almost on its own without any assistance with the hairdryer because you really don't want those pigments to be blowing around and mingling in. Let that dry and then we can do the main. 8. Mane: Well have your spots dried. I hope they've worked their magic. There is a butterfly class, one of my very early beginner classes which is very similar things, you then put the spots on the butterflies. If you enjoy it or you would like to have another go, another subject to get a grasp of how these will spread, then that's a quite a fun little class. But we need to put a main on her now. I'm going to pick up my bigger brush. I've got transparent brown, and I'm going to put the oak and we're going to do stripes down the back of the neck. I shall show you what I mean. Carefully, it doesn't start at the very top, it starts somewhere here. Bear in mind, make sure this is nice and dry for you. Just a nice, good stripe like that. Need a fair amount of paint, because that's going to be swiped up in a minute. Which we could. Let's go all the way down it. Doesn't matter, you don't have to be particularly uniformed or exact on this. But just make sure you've got a decent amount of paint. Just put one down. Filling that. They can touch, it really doesn't matter. Let's say it's just to breakup the main color. Now you can either do this [NOISE] without toothbrush. Make sure it's an old one not your own. [LAUGHTER] I've got this little brush a little bit tied, but it should do the job quite nicely. Before it dries, we want to just pull it up. Dry brush this I haven't wet it down at all. [NOISE] These tiny little bit and see if we can get it to move. If is not moving too much, then you just add a little tiny bit of water, not too much again. It's very easy to overfit over this because it's quite fun. I would suggest that is enough. Don't do too much. That was quite nicely so just to tidy up these edges. I'm just going to a little bit of transparent brown. It's quite hard to put the colors. But when you've put doing these stripes to get them nice and even you're likely to make them a little. What am I trying say? Just neaten these edges out, because in the process of flicking up the mane, it's quite easy to go inside the neck and things and not get a nice line, so just go over. here we can take some little bit of color out on the finishing off stages as well, so just again, a little bit of that, a lovely sweep is nice, and that's it. That's your little mane done and hopefully your neck done. 9. Cheeks: Let's do this little cheek areas so bigger brush should have changed my water, I think. Or we try and keep your water nice and clean once got a little murky, but it will be okay. So we are wetting down. Now, on this left-hand side, you want to go and cover the makeup areas of white up to the eyeball. Let's use this little bit of color so you can see what I mean to you want to run it right up to the eyeball because we're going to put that makeup on the left-hand side, obviously not the right because it's on a slightly different layer. Carry on with physical brushes. I've got it in my hand, so I just want to wet it down that little cheek section but it right up to those, up to their existing color. I don't want it to move too much. I just want a little bit of the lavender. So I've got the transparent brown just there's a little line right on the outside. We're just going to put that in, just allow it to bleed. Clean your brush, let's pop a little bit of lavender in there just under cool underneath the eyelid, isn't it? A little bit of shadow so put that in. We use the hairdryer over the main, warmed my paper up again and it's drawing, it's moving very much a little bit of a uracil. Squint your eyes, you can see that shadow currently let's tiny little bit of sepia. Let's put that down. A little bit stronger there. That nice light there. So I don't want to go into that little area there. It's nice. We're going to put makeup on it. But again, a little alike with the sports for the markings. We want to just catch it at the right time. You just want it to bleed a little bit soft but not too much. We don't want that running all the way down. Just wanted a little bit of softness and probably even more, but little bit drier than those. My stair actually I say my papers quite warm. Same rules apply. If you've got using pans, get them a nice, creamy consistency. If you're using tubes, then make sure your brush is fairly dry. Not dry, but no extra moisture, and then take a nice amount and really carefully just go right under the eyelid. I only have this a little bit damp just so it bleeds a little bit so you don't get a very obvious line. Now you can either do the flicks now for the eyelashes or leave that. I think we'd go over and finish the eye lashes on the finishing off stages so that's all we need to do, really. Just scrolling a bit, we want to make sure this isn't too thick on the right hand side underneath the eye. But it makes sense if you look at your reference photo, it's like a crescent, but it's not too thick on this right-hand side. It's always really tricky angle actually, and I used to struggle with this thing pet portraits is getting the shape of the eye. That's fine. Let's leave that. So we've got the other cheek to do, which is a little easier. So all we're going to do hang onto my little brush, just going to wet all that all down it could be done with a larger brush. It doesn't matter. I've got it in my hand, and I'm actually going to use a little bit of tigers, I think, and a little bit of sunlight genuine because I want, again, I want that to be cooler. But it's also a tiger is I should give me nice bit of grain so, again, I'm just going to touch on the right-hand side and allow that to bleeding. Say [inaudible] eyes, you can see those markings and there isn't always worth if you're sitting, just try and duck you bring your head up have a look? What I liked it. I always stand and I'm standing now because I can keep myself away from the painting a little bit. I'm probably viewing it as you would view it if it was on a wall, I suppose. Tiny bit down here, isn't it some of those, probably the wrinkles and it's always tricky to know when you're doing these layers and sectioning areas off of what areas you sectioned off to what elements need to be added to it? I think that looks all right. Actually what I might do to put a tiny little bit of that dries, a little bit of ocher, just in that bottom part. You can see it's a little bit color there at the bottom starting to draw here. Just click back-and-forth. I've just gone a little array into the neck there you can see it's got a little bit, a little wide, but I can sort that out in a minute. They're tigers bit down there. I think that's enough fiddling. Again that little section needs to dry before we can do the eyes. 10. Eyes: Onto the eyeballs. I always say try and let sections dry and if for any reason they're not touching their next section, you could just carry on. But always my fear is, putting my hand in it and smudging it. That's why I tend to say, let them dry. Obviously, having done the cheek areas, you could have gone straight on to doing the eyes. Just be mindful of where your fists are. We are going to do the eyeballs. Just the eyeballs and not the makeup or not the eyelashes. On the right-hand side, it's a little awkward because you could do the eyelashes and include the eyes. Include the eyeball into the eyelashes is a little bit what's best, really. [inaudible] is probably, it doesn't really matter. I'm just painting. I've got little bit transparent brown and we're just literally painting eyeballs in. It's going to look quite odd. Don't worry. Especially on the right-hand one because we haven't done any of the makeup, haven't done the eyelashes. Just get that shape right and then just move on to the next one and do exactly the same. This one's a little bit more obvious with the eyelashes, isn't it? We can literally just paint it in. Just get the eyeball shape right, keep your eyes flicking back to the reference photo. You [inaudible] straight up to the [inaudible], but we've already done the make-up on the left-hand one, haven't we? It's going to look freaky. Don't panic. Don't get disheartened because mine looks quite freaky at the moment. We just need to let that dry and we are going to do another layer. You can use a hairdryer or straight over that, which I will do [NOISE] doodle brush. We're going to use sepia and [inaudible]. Couldn't find it for a minute. What we want to do it very gently with the eye ball, seen just they're very tiny. It'd be quite fun as of it, to paint me a little bit bigger if you ever get the [inaudible], but it's just the way things are setup here. It's better for me to paint it smaller. It makes some of the little elements like this a bit tricky. On the sepia. But your colors on your same brush and just work at the very top because they will always going to be generally a shadow working at the top of an eyeball and right at the bottom. Again, the same with the left-hand one. Good thing about a draw for you there isn't a lot of very dark. We're not having time for eyeballs into it. It makes it a little easier. Let's say they look a bit a little freaky at the moment because we haven't attached other elements to it. But the reason for putting the brown as the first layer, we can very gently take this layer away, which will reveal brown underneath. That can be done whether it's dry as well, but it's just getting the shape right and I say we've got eyelashes to put into it. That will make it a bit more sense in a minute. We can always alter little bits of shapes just get it right. I think if I squint my eyes were about there, might actually do a little bit of that brown. I'm just going to put a little bit of transparent brown, tap a little bit more in the bottom. But that's just me. I felt I've lost a little bit of brown but hokey joke. That for the time being is your eyes. The other elements are pull together in another layer. Although I like to try and keep the eyes is a separate thing, it works better. Including into other layers, so allow those to dry and we can then hopefully join everything up. 11. Second Layer Head: But this layer is a nice layer because we pull it all together, so big brush. I'm afraid I can't help you with adding a little bit of color. But it's fairly straightforward. We're going to wet the very top of the right-hand honed down to that lump that sits on top of her head. Then this little portion that runs down from the corner of the eyes. We're not going into the cheek, although I've gone a little bit into the cheek. That's being a bit heavy-handed. Round over the nostrils. Keep it a lovely light layer that you let your brush always fall on the paper because hopefully, you've got some really nice marks and patterns from that first layer. We don't want to rustle those up. I'm just trying to let my brush just literally fall. You can dab the water on. Again, we don't want to go into this cheek area either here. We're just going underneath. We're going go right up, up to the eye. Use a little brush if it helps to get them nice and close. We're going to go over the top of that eyelash as well. Hope that makes sense that the eyelash is dry at the moment but underneath is wet. If you've put your hairdryer over any time, then we'll see and make sure it's nice and wet. Now hopefully your nostrils would have just blend in and probably just given you enough color. It's probably softened the nostril lines. That's the theory. Big brush, fiddling too much to have a nice bit of water going to be quick. Quite a little bit of time to play. You don't want it sitting in puddles, but you want it nice and wet. You can say just tap it in. Then you go to this stage. Now on your first layer, if you felt you weren't bold enough of any of those, this is where we can add a little bit more strength. I'm going to put, let's put a little bit of sepia. Again, bear in mind this is my piece, yours may be a little different. If you were a quite heavy hand with the first layer, then you don't want to add too much at this stage. But say it is where you have to judge your own pace now. I could just do a little bit of darkening down this right-hand side just to give a little bit more strength. I like that sense of coolness and darkness and heaviness on the right-hand side, and nice light on the left. That's why we've left the left dry so we're not tempted to add more color. A little bit up here. This is nice. I'm happy with that. Any bit you're happy with, you don't have to touch. Any bit you want just to add a little bit of strength and you can just tap a bit more color in. Like genuine, I want to keep it cooler since probably the transparent brown was probably a little bit too warm. You should find because this is your second layer. Your paint won't move as quite as much, so once you start building up layers, you'll find the paint doesn't wiz as much as your first one would have done. To say, gained squinting eyes, look for those dark areas. A little bit if I squint, I can see that little line here that starts to join up. I have the tiger's eye for that. Tiger's eye is always nice and soft, and won't give me a very hard line. I use a sepia if it will. It just getting to know your paints, you make you. Obviously, you're not necessarily going to have the same paints as me. It's just getting a familiarity with your own paint. Over here has a large nostril here is where I feel I need some lavender. If I really do, I don't know. I can't help myself. Just a little bit of lavender up here. My target is eye. As it begins to dry, you find you have a little bit more control again because as it begins to dry it won't move as far as much, just like the painting of the spots on. Stroke there. Nice bit of strength found. Once this begins to, this is actually quite wet here. I'm just going to have a big brush, dry it off. I put a little bit too much water on here because it's going to take a while to dry. I'm going to suck a little bit up. Equally, if you've been too heavy-handed, you can take the color out at this stage as well. That's just by gently with a bigger brush just gently sucking it up. It's almost like sculpting really at this stage. Yes, I want to put that makeup line, but it just needs to dry. Like we had to wait here for it to dry. It just needs to dry a little bit more. But I can carry on doing any mark. It's a big blob there. A little line there isn't there where there's underneath ther. If we actually put an eye socket, it still will be further down. If you feel you're happy with it, don't carry on fiddling. I'm just going around my piece. I'm looking at my piece and thinking, well, I need some strength, squinting my eyes because this an offshore. Sorry, I went a little into the nostril. I didn't know I was doing that so I could shape that. That probably didn't make any sense to you at all. When I was doing my nostril I went a little bit too far in anyway. That's just something I did. Quite nice to have those lines around there, around the nostril. You see they're quite pronounced. Don't lay on her. I think I can keep fiddling. I don't think it's going to help. I like it. I like what I've done there. I don't think there's anything else. I will maybe just a little line on the top of the hump there. Just a little bit of strength there, isn't it? You can put that in. The beauty of working wet everything can stay lovely and soft. We will do some lines over her eyes because they are, they fab those. Actually, I'm just going to take a little bit curve out where that spread a little bit too far. To gain, my brush is damp and I'm just very gently just forming on the page, but it's sucking up a little bit of color. I think we're about ready to put that makeup on. I've got hold of my sepia. I'm going to clean my brush, and we're going to make sure that brush is obviously still damp, but it's quite dry and then this is going to be nice and thick. We just want to go underneath, and we'll put those lashes on quite at the end when the finishing off part. Then any bit that needs makeup just goes a little bit into the face, isn't it? See that really helped me to such a difference. It's a bit more sense, isn't it? You see her starting to come to life now. It doesn't look quite so freaky. The lashes do help as well. I can try and get that shape just right. Squint your eyes back and forth. See there's a nice line above the lash. We've kept that dry line there as well, isn't it? Quite nice. It was nice and soft too often and too hard. I think I'm starting to get there. I just want a little bit of pop a little bit tiger's eye on the edge. I want a little bit more strength there popping right up to the eye. I think I'm on there as well. I made a little error. I'm just taking that little bit of paint out. Let's put actually tiny little bit oak on some of those nostrils. I look further down. [inaudible] and her muzzle isn't she? Squinting eyes makes a huge difference. Just have a look. Squint your eyes back and forth to your reference photo and you can see where you need to any other color. But just be careful mine is beginning to dry now. I can see if I carry on fiddling a little bit too small. Let me move to a bigger brush. If I'm not careful with these areas is starting to dry. My paint will get spotty as I add it because I'm almost starting to work on dry paper. But I have a lovely sweet spot where it's just right. You can put the color down and it spread perfect. Just starting to go beyond that if I'm not careful because this is almost dry. I need to down tools and let that completely dry. 12. Finishing Off: Onto the very finishing off bits where we put it all together. There's a little bit more work to do in the finishing off bits in the normally, because normally it's just little bits of light, but we've got little elements to put in, little eyelashes to pop on, but they're all little itty-bitty bits. First of all, I'm going to do the tops of those ears. It really isn't a lot, but they obviously need doing, so we need to fill them in. Careful you go right right against the head and just a little bit into that fluff. Don't worry, we're not doing a huge amount, just a tiny little bit of color just to make sure they look like they're attached to her. I picked up my little bit of ocher and I'm going to just a little hint of it. I'm going to pop a little bit of lavender, just a hint, just so there's enough for your eye to look like it's attached. But we really want to keep that lovely light and to keep the idea of those nice white fluffy bits. Take your time, there's no great hurry with this bit. It's only tiny little areas. Stick with my ocher and a little bit of transparent brown. It's a little bit darker in there, isn't it? A tiny little bit at the top so when we rub those pencil marks out, you can just about make out that the ear is attached. Pop a little bit here. There's not quite enough there on the left hand here. Tap a bit more in there. It helps to get some paint on the brush. That little bit done. Now, I think we should do these eyelashes and get these in, because this is going to really help pull it together. You can use a sepia. I'm going to use a little bit of both actually. We're going to fill in the top of that eye. We're literally just going to paint it in. Then if you've got a tiny little brush, a little rigger brush, then we can flick these eyelashes out. You can almost be a bit more extravagant with them and make them look a little longer than they actually are because you can see, look at that, it just made all the difference. Then we can do those lower ones as well while we're here. Just a lovely little flick. You could do this if you've got a little fine liner pen. You could do that with a little bit of confident in that. Or even a heavy pencil. But the actual lashes needs to be dark, so you need to paint those in, just go in a little bit more just to emphasize that eye makeup. Again, on the left-hand side Again, it's a little more tricky because she's actually got a white tips to them. We'll work underneath to start with. Let's see how we go. Some of my practice pieces worked okay having a white top, some didn't look so good, so I will see how it goes. I'm probably making them look a little more extravagant than they actually are, but I think that makes her look quite sweet. What I will do very gently, I might just fill that in, that white, and just let the eyelash color just gently blend so it doesn't look quite so stark. Then we can do those lower ones as well. It's a bit dry. It's concentration silence. [LAUGHTER]. Lovely. Let's move on for them and just leave that to sit for a minute. We can do the little lower part of her chin or lower mouth. We can just wet that off. That's why you need to keep your brush nice and clean. [LAUGHTER] It looks like I've already got myself some color on there. It wasn't quite the color I was intending. It's transparent brown. I was going to use some transparent brown, and just pop that in and just get that nice sort. Clean it off. Back to your little rigger brush, or whatever you've chosen, or pen. Then we can do some lovely hairs of her chin. I'm going to use transparent brown rather than the very dark. Again, she's got some coming out of here. I think that's probably enough before I give her a very heavy chin. It is always tempting, isn't it? Because it's quite fun doing those. How's it look? I'm sure putting those eyelashes has just gone, look at her. Just having a stepping wide a little bit. I think we need to put those catch lights in that will help us see how that's looking. My lower part has kept that nice brown, I hope you can see that. But if yours are very dark at the moment, you can very gently just take off that second layer of the color we put down. Just very gently stroke the brush and that should reveal the brown underneath. Dab it with your finger because that will stop it taken too much color out. I hope you can see that starting to appear. Next. I'm going to put a little catch lights in and I think it always helps just to pull it all together and you can see. You want this to be nice and gloopy. It's good, creamy consistency. Because you haven't actually got any obvious catch lights on her eyes on the reference photo but I always like to put them on. We're going to put; to a scary bit, just a little crescent in the either end of the eye just like that and then we can reassess whether the eye needs any help. There's a nice line of light underneath here. I'm still working a little way away from this to get this very accurate, but hopefully I'm just going to see if I can use my little brush. [NOISE] I can never quite get close enough when I'm filming to these little tiny areas so that it's doing this from a bit of a distance but you can see that line underneath here currently trying to get in. That's just the thing that might worked as you see squinting from over here. I will suggest leaving yours. See how it looks. I'm going to leave mine for a minute. Do here the little [inaudible] and then we can reassess whether you need any extra little bits and pieces but sometimes the other elements we're going to put in will be enough just to bring them all together. I'm going to use burnt tiger's eye. The lines over her eyes are lovely. I'm not a great one for painting things on, but tiger's eyes are nice and soft. I can do get those lines and I think it just helps actually painting them on often leaving those very soft. Well, instead of putting them on when the paper is wet like I normally do and let them blend and bleed a little bit, I think they're quite nice actually painted on. You can always soften one edge as well. If you think it looks a bit hard you can just do a line here; a very obvious line, and then I can just gently [inaudible] by a little brush and then go underneath or over the top and just soften one edge and it stops it looking too hard. You always squish it with your finger. I think she is looking okay. This is only for me because my chin has now gone a little too light after painting that one color down, and I'm going to paint that back in again. That's better. Step away from your painting, see what you think. That's made a difference. Now what we're going to do, I'm going to put those down and we're just go round and take any light out that we think we need. I'm just going to grab by. For new this kitchen roll at the side of the studio, I've got my little eradicated brush and I'm just going to take a little bit of color out. Again, if you squint you can see where you need that. A little bit there is enough. Again, you can either squish it with your finger which won't take as much color out or you can carefully dab it with the kitchen roll. Let's hang on to that one, let's just go round a little bit and there's a little bit of light out there. It's just going round your own paint radiant and just taking any color out that you feel you need. Swap the brush. That is eradicated lovely for taking very hard lines out, but if you want to take something soft out it's better to go back to a bigger brush; a bigger softer brush. You find you might take too much away. We do need to get rid of these pencil marks, but I'm just aware the tips of the ears might be still a little wet. A little bit of color here. [inaudible] to be too heavy that side , the left-hand side. Over the top of her nose isn't that just there? I think she looks that she's coming together okay. I'm just going to pick up my little eradicated brush and there's a lovely little bit of light. I know we also put a line in but it'll be quite nice to get a little bit of light off the top of her neck where the mane joined. I that you can see that nice chunk of light. You don't have to go all the way along, you can just take a little bit out here and there and just neaten up. It's just a little bit ragged, so you can neaten any lineup or even put a little bit color in like I was doing because you've lost a bit of color. You can go back in with the white gouache and just put little hints of light if you wish. Never a great fan of the gouache. It always looks a bit stuck to me but you can add little bits. It does break it up a little bit and that's why we did the stripes really to hopefully break up the mane. I'm going to just quickly whiz a hairdryer over this just to make sure it's really dry and I'm going to get rid of these pencil marks and I can get a better sense of it then. Carefully with my rubber and I say, just be really mindful that everything you're just drawing there's no spots anywhere of water where it's dropped. We're going to rub these pencil marks out and this is where you hope you've done a nice and light difference there pencil marks make. I'm just going to take a fraction just a tiny little edge off here off the top of the ear maybe. Again, it's always worth. Well they boringly say if you follow me a lot and done one of my other classes, it really is worth stepping away leaving this painting. It can be just a couple of hours and coming back and reassessing before you go, yeah, that's done because you will see very obvious things that we can't see together at the moment. I'm just going to scroll into my iPad, and I've got my reference photo on my iPad. I might put a little bit of tiger's eye just a very gentle line just around there. I just feel it will make more sense. Again, sometimes it's just trusting your instincts, maybe something. If you're pondering over something there's probably a good reason why you are. Again, that would probably be a good case of stepping away and seeing it with a fresh pair of eyes because it will probably be obvious. Now I'm liking the eyes. I think personally, I need to step away from this. I'm somebody who may be tinkered if there's anything that's very obvious I will do another little chapter on any tinkerings I have done at the next day, but at the moment I'm happy with how it looks. I think of how we've been painting together for a little while now and you almost don't see what you're looking at so it's good to step away. Reasses. Sometimes you come back and you'll be really pleased and everything has worked out. If not then sometimes it's just tiny little bits of tinkerings that can be done but I think for the time being I can say she is done. I hope you've enjoyed this class and I've thoroughly enjoyed these subjects, she's been wonderful to paint. As ever I probably always say this but please do share these on the Projects and Resources pages or anywhere on social media. That's lovely as well when they pop up there and I can then share them on stories which I quite often do. Thank you. 13. Next Day Tweaks: Now as I've done in several of the more latest classes, I've done this little extra lesson just where I've gone and viewed my painting the next day and had a tinker. This is exactly what I would do with a pet portrait or a commission piece. I would paint it, come back at it and look at it the next day and alter anything if needed. When I sit back in my studio, and I could see it from a little bit of a distance, I felt this ear could just be a touch darker and I could have obviously just made it a little darker in the first place, but obviously no two paintings are going to be the same. I'm looking at my reference photos. In my previous pieces, I'll show you their, both the ears are darker than the class piece. So what I'm going to do, I'm going to wet this back down again and put a little bit more strength in there. This eye is just gone a little, I'll take a little bit too much color out for my liking. I'm also going to, this is a touch too light. Again, I'm going to wet some areas down and just add a tiny bit, a bit more strength. As I say, this is tight little, being nit-picky really. But I thought it might be helpful for you to see how I go about constructing my own pieces and my own commission pieces. As I say, without further ado, I'm going to pick up my big brush, get it nice and wet and I'm just going to wet the inside of this ear. I don't want too much water on there, but obviously I want it wet enough. Same applies this as all the rules we did when we wet down second layer. Keep everything lovely and like you don't want to disturb that layer underneath. Only got one layer there so we're just doubling up. I'm going to pick up. I'm going to pick up my lavender, I'm going to have the tiger's eye. I probably won't need a lot, it's just to give a little bit more strength, so I'm just going to tap it in. No brush strokes, I'm just tapping. Then you see it won't be very obvious, but it will give a little bit more depth, a little bit more to the painting I think. I'm going to pick up a little bit of buff titanium. Here me copy this and colors. No brush strokes, just tapping. You can already see has just given them a little bit more sense of shadow. I'll keep them all in that reference photo because it's easy to overdo this, it's just a little hint. These finishing off bits or next 18 because they're generally very small and quite minor as I said. Taking her again, I might as that scoff, I've added quite a lot of water and now I've added a dog hair. I think that might be the puppy. [LAUGHTER] So I'll just gently just take up a little bit of water. I could [inaudible] genuine. Add a tiny little bit more strength there as well. Mainly working to this edge and allowing it to run. I don't want it too much in there because I could do that. That's what this brush down again. I could just very carefully flick. I don't want to blunt that nicer sense of hair, white hair. So very carefully, I've just poked a few back in. To make that as a nice line of ear. Strength there just on the right on the edge, a little bit in there. Say step away. However, have a look, see what you think. Yours might be absolutely fine-tuned. This is just me having a tinker and I thought it might be helpful for you to see what I would alter. You may have slightly different issues, you may have none. You may not need to do any of this. I think that's done. Hovering that brush in there. Let's put those back. I'm going to do this eye next, I think. Let's pick up my very little Number 1. I number not. I'm just going to wet the inside pupil, I'm actually going to go round that piece of white as well if I can, because I don't want to really put that in the mix because once I wet that little white patch down, it's going to go quite opaque and it can make them look like they've got cataracts because then the white obviously mixes with the color. I just want to make it a little bit darker. I've got sepia, and I'm just going to tap a little bit of sepia right at the very top. I've probably just wiped away too much color when I was taking a little color out when I was showing you. Put a little bit more warmth in there because this transparent brown is lovely and rich so I want to keep this a little warm and rich as well. Careful not to go into the wind. Best again, keeping your eye on the reference photo again. I might pick up my sepia. I just pop it nice and dark in the corners. Say there's usually, and even if it isn't, I tend to go with this rule. There's darkness underneath the eyelash or underneath the eye, top of the eye and lighter underneath. I'm going to leave that and let that dry because it's a bit hard to gauge at this point. None I'm going to do now is another of these areas I'm going to really touch. I can wet this little area down. I want to do. To keep this all soft, although it's only this I want to darken. If I was just to wet this little patch down, I would end up with a watermark similar to the lines here. I'm pointing this out. Maybe see these where we section these areas off. You can see there's quite a transition there. There is quite a hard line. If I was to wet this down, it would be harder to soften and you would end up with this line, it will look large. I'm brushing the right way round, I need to wet that down. The second layer we did, we wet this section down here. I'm going to do exactly the same. Again, keeping everything really light because I probably don't want to add any more strength to any of this. The risk with re-wetting an area down is it can get muddy, so keep everything ever so light. I don't want to touch here because I don't want an eye color running in. I'm going to go around the nostril. It's like keeping all of the light around that muzzle. Barely touching the paper, I'm trying my best not to. Just enough to apply the water. What can happen because you'll be able to light. You can end up with a bit of a puddle, so then you can suck it back out. I'm going to be a bit mindful because there's lovely eyelashes, so I don't want to smudge those in. I'm actually going to have to be a bit careful around here. Just stuck in my head to see what I've wet down and it looks good. You probably can't quite make that out, but it's got quite a lot of water on it at the moment so what I can do is just suck it back up. It's only got a lot of water in there because I've been really careful with adding it to avoid muddying that layer, two layers now, isn't in there? Of course, you can just wait for this to dry a little bit. [NOISE] I think I'm really there. I see all getting to that nice steam on a lovely stage where it's just beginning to go off. This is a nice working stage which you will definitely get. The more you do, the more you'll see and you get a sense for it. Let's pop that back down. I'm going to pick up my big brush. You should make sure it's clean and I'm going to just take the excess moisture off because I don't want to start adding more water back in there again. [inaudible] dry patch to it. It's the bit I want to be working onto. Just bubbled my head, made sure that's to the right scent of dryness. Even just wetting that down I may have found that's just blended enough to give me a little bit of color in there and just enough. Sometimes just by merely wetting a subject down it allows things to soften and bleed a little bit, but I still like to add a little bit more color I think. I'm actually going to pick up the ocher and keep it nice and warm, light, nothing too heavy. I'm just going to tap the most tiniest bit. It might not even come out in the camera actually, how subtle this is. But it is very subtle. It's just enough. So when I step away from it, and it's dried, I can see that's worked and it's just taken the basal glare off. While I'm here, you can't help but [inaudible] when you've made the effort to wet an area down. It's quite dark, this area here, so I'm just going to tap. Again, you can see how little that paint is moving now because we're now on the third layer. If I was to do this from the very first layer, that would move a lot more. But because we're on the third now, you can see how little my paint is moving. That's how I gain the control anyway. I have another little squint to see if we need anything. I don't want to get too much over here, but maybe just a little tiny touch. These minute things, again, you're going to have a view up here. Pop something a little bit dark in there just to see you can see really of it. Necessarily needs to be darker. Tap little bit out. Add a little bit of ocher here. They be guided by your instinct, I think is quite often. That's the bits. That's right. You can overthink things that your instincts is quite often right. It's only a little bit more color up here. I've got color a little bit. Then equally when you've wet an area down and this had a lot of light, so I can just make sure that that paint hasn't bled too much and just gently wipe some of that away again. You have to say by wetting an area down you're encouraging your ink to blend a little bit more so you might find areas that you wanted to keep nice and white. [NOISE] Might just need a little bit of just sucking the color up and moving it back again. Now, before I let this completely dry, [NOISE] I might pick up my little sepia just to go around that nostril line again. It's a really nice strong line around there. I haven't captured so much of this one. It's just tiny little movements, tiny little tinkers. Sepia is lovely because it really does [NOISE] hold its ground. Again, if you've gone a little bit too far, you can just gently clean your brush, take the excess moisture off, and gently suck back again. I have a nice line there, isn't it? I can put that back in. It might just disappeared a little bit because where we wet it down. [NOISE] Just be mindful because I didn't wet right underneath to those eyelashes that we don't end up with a watermark or waterline. I think she's coming on actually. I might have to, once it's dry, just to pop these lines back in. I quite like them added afterwards so they're look quite pronounced. I'm not sure why I'm not doing this now. [LAUGHTER] I think I'm there. [inaudible] because it's an enjoyable stage is to carry on doing too much and you ruin them. I enjoy this stage. It's just the tiny little bits there, just make all the difference really. Fabulous. I am going to down tools. Just glancing at this eye here. I think that's helped. It's made it a little bit darker. I don't think there's any other areas that really need addressing. No, I'd say, I hope this has helped. It's easier to better gauge you how I slowly build up my portraits. It's just viewing your piece the next day and not being afraid to wet the layers down and to add a little bit of color. Hope you found this helpful. 14. Final Thoughts: [MUSIC] I hope you enjoy this class. Wasn't she a joy to paint? How did sectioning those areas off go? It's a good way to gain control of your paint, making it feel less daunting. Hope you enjoy painting those big liquid eyes and eyelashes. I think it was my favorite part in the painting. Also, how did the markings on her neck go? It's just getting the timing right and knowing the characters of your paint. We look forward to seeing you in the next class. [MUSIC]