Black Dog Twig: A Free-Flow Watercolour Masterclass with Jane Davies

1. Introduction: Hello, and welcome to this advanced watercolor class. Today, we're going to be painting my beautiful black and tan dog called Twig. Get ready. This is a full on class. And if you find painting black dogs in watercolor tricky, then I'm going to show you how to tackle this scary subject. As always, this is filmed in real time, featuring my free flow watercolor technique, and there's no black paint involved. I'm Jane Davis. I live, paint, teach, and walk my lovely spaniels in the beautiful South Downs National Park in England. Over the last 20 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 teach 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 art business where two days are never the same from the thrill of exhibiting to painting pet and wildlife commissions 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 overfussing. If you're just starting out, my three beginner classes will guide you with your first masterpiece painted in only 15 minutes. Then you'll find dozens of my master classes available covering a wide range of beautiful subjects. In each one, I share the techniques I use in my own professional work. We'll have a lot of fun together, and you'll gain the understanding and confidence to incorporate everything you learn into your own work. You'll be amazed at how easy watercolor can be. I provided you with a lovely reference photo of twig and a downloadable template. The template will make drawing stress set free so you can just enjoy the painting. I will show you how to be bold and loose at the beginning to create that lovely sense of ease we all love to see. We will be painting multiple layers with many different colours to create that all important depth needed on a black subject in watercolor. I'll then show you how to paint that critical eye so it sits naturally to give character and life. We will also look at the importance of taking your time at the end. And, yes, there is quite a lot of fiddling and pondering to get those final details right. If you'd like to learn more about me or my work, then please pop over to my website at Jan Davis watercolors.co dot k. This can be found on my profile page, along with links to my Instagram and Facebook pages. I love to share my art and adventures, especially on stories with many ideas, works in progress, and tales of judio life. I really hope you will share all your paintings on the projects and resources pages. I love seeing your masterpieces. And 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. So come and join me. 2. Twig: Well, I thought, as you're going to be painting twig, it would be quite fun for you to know a little bit about her. Twig is a 5-year-old working cocker spaniel. And like all spaniels, she's very loving and also very energetic. She lives with her 12-year-old pack mate Scarlet, who you may recognize as being the face of Jane Davis watercolors in the past. Twig had traveled quite a lot for her young age, spending three months with us in Spain. And in 2025, she also traveled down to southern Italy when I hosted their art retreat with the lovelostokes. She's also had holidays in France and visited the Highlands of Scotland. I guess Twigs claim to fame would be her great scent work abilities. We went to regular classes and even completed her level one, but she found the classroom experience just a bit stressful. But we still love to do some practice in the garden, and it helps to engage that brain of hers. But generally, her days are spent on lovely long walks on the South Downs and lazing around the house and sometimes helping with filming. 3. Materials: So let me run through all the materials you're going to need to paint our lovely cocker spaniel tweet. So I'm going to start with the paints. Now, there's a few extra that I've grabbed, as I've gone through the class. So when you start, you'll see these two are missing, but I think I go on and explain why. I say, this class is a little bit more free flow than the normal one, as I've really wanted to paint this more as I would paint it and how the process of that. So it's slightly different. Right. So let me run through them that I actually did use for most of the class. All Daniel Smith as normal, and I've got Vandyke brown, transparent brown oxide, Tiger's eye genuine, epis lazary genuine. Quack dome deep gold. So like, genuine. Of course. How could I not? Luna violet, gothte, lavender, and potters pink, and a tiny little bit of white gouase which is just for the highlights. So only need only use that very, very sparingly. Now, the paper is an Italian brand, magnaniO magnani. I'm probably pronouncing that horrendously if you're Italian, so apologies. But it's a lovely paper, and I will put a link on the projects and resources page where you'll find all these materials, so no need to try and memorize them. And it's also been stretched on a perfect paper stretcher. Again, I'll pop the link on there for you. As normal pot of water, I've got some salt. I did use it, but it hasn't really worked on this just because of the granulating paints, I think, but maybe if you were using something slightly different, it might help, but not by no means an essential. I got my little trusty heart, which just helps tip the paper. It's about an inch high if you haven't come across my lovely heart. I have kitchen older paper towel, a magic sponge. Now, I only really use this for tidying little spots up, but I do mention it, so I've popped that on there. A pencil, any old pencil. And I have got two traveling Torinto Brushes, which are lovely. And again, I'll put the link in those. They're lovely. What else have I got on my table? Hair dryer off camera again, just for drying in between layers right at the very end. So you don't necessarily need that. I would strongly suggest having an iPad or something to put the reference photo on, which, again, is all on the projects and resources pages, that would be really helpful. And yes, there will be a template on there. However, you find the best way to get this image onto your piece of paper. So don't be afraid to use that as it's quite important to get the shape right. And I think that's it. But I know I'm going to have a few questions about the colors. As you can see, she is predominantly a black dog with tan markings. So I've used a good array of colors, but I haven't actually used black. So if you don't have these exact colors, find some good substitutes. There will be a little color swatch there again on the projects and resources pages. So you can have a little gauge to see what I've got. The gold I only use a little bit. The pot is pink. It's just I like it. I like the little paper pink, although it's very, very subtle. I don't use some of the blues, particularly, but it's like genuine, really, and the Vandyke I use mainly, and the gothte. So they would be the three main ones to try and marry up as closely as you can. So yes, let's go and sketch her out, and you can start painting her. 4. Sketching Out: So before we take the plunge and start adding some color, we obviously need the sketching out part. So it's super important to get this sketch right because we're actually dealing with a particular dog rather than a generic, say, horse or what other things we've done penguins or puffins. You know, we can be a little bit, um what should I say, liberal with the sketch. It doesn't matter so much that that penguin actually looks like that particular penguin. But obviously, we're painting twig, and twig needs to look like twig, so take your time with this one. As ever, there's that reference photo on the projects and resources pages and a template. And I know there's many ways that you can get an image onto the paper, but if you're unsure of doing this freehand, and I haven't done this freehand hands up, I rarely do a freehand sketch. I I either trace it out or actually have a projector these days, so I project the image onto my piece of paper. That way, I know I've got the image right. So when I start painting, I can just be a bit more freer and looser because I'm not worrying that if I put this brush here, maybe I can sort of correct it by doing a certain movement with a brush or something. I know what I've got down is dead right. So yeah, super critical. I won't go all over the parts, particularly, 'cause if you can get this if you can get this sketch down right, then you're there. Just take your time. No hurry at this point. And I always, always, without fail, will sketch it out and then step away. And it might only be an hour. I might go walk the dogs, do a bit of housework. Who knows? Then come back and just check. I've actually got that right even though you can do maybe a light box or a projector like me or trace it, it's still down to the individual having to put that sketch onto the piece of paper. So yeah, definitely worth taking your time. So I'm not sure if there's any great hints apart from sorry, taking your time. 5. Ear: So before we actually add some paint to the paper, I know I've already gone through the materials. For this class, I have labeled it as an advanced class, so I'm going to be a little bit more like me painting. I will do my very best to guide you, but I will also be a bit me, as well. So if I think there's a color that would help this painting as I work my way through it, I will grab them. So what you see here may be slightly different than what you've just seen on the materials list. Right. Before I continue gabbling away, let's start. And it's always a bit nerve racking starting. Even though this is now class 57, it's still a bit scary when that camera goes on, and I'm having to start, and it's that blank bit of paper, isn't it? So we're going to start with the ear. I normally start with the ear because it's a safe contained area, and just then you've started, and you've got some color on the paper. So I'm actually going to give this a little tilt. So my little trusty heart, giving this paper a tilt. And I will, as I paint this ear, give this paper a proper tilt, and I'm actually going to let it dry almost at a really strong angle. Obviously, that's not so great for the filming, so I will try and keep it at a gentle angle and we'll work our way through. So I'm going to, let's do this because I think it's a helpful thing. I'm just going to wet. We'll be up to here. So, nice and yours is nice, clean water, so don't put the lavender in. And just wet all that area. Lovely wet. Don't be scared with the amount of water. This will allow the paint to flow because if it's not wet enough, it will just stick it and your brush. Make sure that's good and wet as well. Right. Hopefully, you've got that reference photo opened up in front of you. If not, try to get in some way, try and get that reference photo so you can view it because it's a really good thing to go back to. And you can see the lights coming from sort of this side. It's actually outside on our patio. But she was obviously in a quite quiet subdued mood. She's normally a little bit more hyper than that. But you can see the colors coming in from here. So we're going to try and keep this side a little bit cooler and bear in mind that try and get that juxta between the cool and warmth, it's always nice. So I'm gonna pop that lavender down. I'm gonna have so light genuine in my hand. The Van ****, these are probably going to be my staples for most. The other colors are just there to sort of help. So let's start. Let's start with so light genuine. I'm just going to place. Just allow the beauty of so light genuine. It moves wonderfully. And bear in mind, this has got to come up to the top of the year. So, you know, don't be shy. Put plenty of color and just drop. So make sure if your painting isn't moving like mine, just make sure your brush is wet enough, as well. It's often a case you haven't got your brush wet enough. So we're going to make sure there's plenty here. Keep on just dabbing. There's no brush strokes, trying to keep the so light genuine more to the right hand side and Van **** more to the front. And she's actually quite a van Dike color, and I see her in some lights. She's not black black. She's she's got this sort of lovely, yeah, Vandyke color. Again, keeping adding the moment we're gonna wet that and that color's got to then go up there. And we can always add to it, as well, so right. Brush. And we're just going to wet the remaining part of the ear, just allowing that color to come up. And if you find something that just looks awesome and you love it, Yeah, don't worry. Let it be. And that might be all you do use in another layer, we will go back over the ear, so we can add more strength if we need to. But to get the light, it's very hard to reclaim the light. So it's always nice if you can get it. Yeah, if you can keep the light, sort of scrub colors out, but it never works as well. Now, we're not going to do any flicks on this layer. Because we'll do them at the end. The flicks are always best done in your very last layer. That way, they will look as natural as possible. You can see I must have a little dry patch there. I'm just going to go over that. I don't really want a hole in her here. Now, I can. In's actually looking really nice. I'm not sure if I want to do that. But if it's not running, you can load your brush up with water and just drop some water. Just be mindful if you've got it on a tilt, it starts to gather at the top. So actually, I might leave that there for a minute. I'd like to give it a bit more of a tilt because it these paints running over the texture of the paper gives a nice um a nice texture, and it also also pushes, so pushes the color out. Um, I did warn you I might be concentrating a bit more than normal, so if I suddenly stopped talking, you know, why. So at this stage, as long as I've got this is forming quite nicely. But if it hasn't got enough colour, I can add a little bit more colour on the bottom here. As long as this is still lovely and wet. It's starting to dry, leave it because we can always add it to the next color. Sorry, the next layer. I'm quite pleased with how that's forming, actually. I don't really want to do much more. So I'm going to leave it. I won't tilt it at the moment, but I'm going to leave it to dry on a not quite horizontal, but it's going to be on a really steep angle. I say that will encourage this paint to run to the top of the ear. And yeah, hopefully form some nice just as it dries and pushes over that textured paper. Just go to make sure. But you might want to just when you tilt it up, just stand with it for a few minutes just to make sure you don't I'm gonna leave this flat for a second. That doesn't gather at there and then obviously run off. But that will leave us a nice, darker area at the bottom, and obviously you see it as a lot lighter at the top. Yes, give it a good old tilt, and we will allow that to dry on the tilt. So while I'm standing here having this tilted at a really steep angle, it's been probably been for about two or 3 minutes if you have a look, I lay it flat now. That's got a lot of movement. So what I actually gonna do? I'm gonna lay it with just a little tilt. If you lay it flat, there's always a risk of any top paint coming back. So it does continue moving, but maybe not at that extreme speed because that's gonna give me a little bit too much umph. And then whatever you do at this stage, touch it. If you drop some water in here, or try and think, Oh, no, I need a little bit more color in here, you absolutely ruin it. So be patient. And if there's something you wanted to add or color you wanted to add, just keep that in mind, and you can do it on the next layer. 6. Body: So once your ear is lovely and dry, we're going to lay our board flat again, and we're going to do these sort of side portions. Let me Is it a very rough one. The proportions are out a little bit. It's a very rough, very rough draw. But we're going to do these side parts. And you see on that reference photo, she's got some lovely sort of chess hair, and she's also got the main body here, and we're going to be doing the main body and leaving the middle part for another section. So, let me put a little bit of lavender in, so again I think it's helpful. But make sure this ear is lovely and dry because we're going to go right up against it. So keep your water nice and clean. You don't want the lavender. This is just so you can see. Well, I'm wetting down. I'm gonna come somewhere sort of the ish. Now we're only going to do one layer, I think. As I say, this class will be a little bit more how I would paint. So if I feel when I get to the end it needs another layer, I will add another layer. But my thinking is that we'll just need the one layer. So we're coming down here, and I'm saying that because we also want a sort of a nice shape because I'm not going to be doing the leg, so I just want a nice tailing off. And you can see here. I've just poured down a fraction, and we've not really put much color in there. So yeah, it's more This is more about almost the shape and just subtlety. We don't want too much going on. Alright. Let me pick up. So like Genuine, and I'm gonna pick up the andyke. What else? And I'm gonna have a little bit of the Tiger's eye, I think. I'm just thinking. No, we're gonna stick with these for the time being. Let me see how I go on with these. So again, it's the same ear colors really, and we're just going to tap. I'm not going to put this on a tilt at the moment. I'm going to see how it feels. I could. But as I say, I don't want it really witting down too much. I want to keep it stay nice and light. This is just tiger's eye, not burnt tiger's eye. It's very soft color, but it does split colors up quite nicely, and it's very, very granulating. I say, I want to keep this a little bit cooler this side, so I'll keep again, keeping eye on that reference photo. But not being too much of a slave to it on this part, but we also need to do the flicks, I say, I'm hoping this will just be done in one layer. And again, if you get something you like to look of, then Oh, I'm going to really emphasize this on this class. Just leave it you get something that's pleasing. That's a little bit of lapsi Lazarus. Say I'm just after the shape more than I am concentrating too much on colors and yes, colors, really. If I'm after something nice. So you can do one line or something like that and we do these flicks and I'm gonna pick up my little brush for. Wet, get nice point. Always start. If you haven't followed all these classes, always start a little way in. I always say this. But don't go right to the edge because it's so easy to go too far out. So we just want to do a few here. I had a little bit of tiger's eye to keep that lovely and soft. Yeah, hasn't she as well. So, it doesn't. If you want to put a few more on or not as many, you know, the coat could be blowing. I think there are some parts, you know, that she could have just done one step further forward or wind could have blown, just blown that hair back in. So don't be too worried by adding you know, adding bits. If you think that would add help, like when we do the flicks and the ears, then do cause it could be a moment when she's just say something's blown over, it's not showing. And that's also with the nose, actually, but I'll hopefully say talk to you about that when we come to do the nose. I'm quite liking that, I quite like the minimal look, but I am aware there's a nice dark part here because the actual chest hair is going to be quite light, as well. So I'm going to put a little bit of so generate. I actually a little bit of anyc together. Get a little bit of strength here. It's always tricky to know what you're going to incorporate in the chest hair and what we will incorporate in the body part. Okay, I can add a bit of water just to get that moving a little bit, if it's a bit sticky. And we also got that her markings, as well. So I'm gonna pop those down for the time being. Let's pick up the gothit. I'm just going to stick with gothte actually, 'cause I want this to be a bit cooler this side, so we might add a little bit of orange on the other side. So I'm just gonna try and emphasize a little bit more the warmth and dark than on the reference photo. It's just coming in there, isn't it? We're just gonna add that now shouldn't move quite as much we get a little bit more control, hopefully. Just tapping. Adding a bit more water if it's sticky. Getting take brush away, I know there's not too much to sort of guide you somehow, but as long as you've got that yeah, a marking in there. That same applies to those flicks. You, you could have moved a fraction more and those markings would have sort of changed their shape. So if you get something that's sort of moving nicely giving you a nice shape, don't worry if it's not quite the same shape as what's shown in that reference photo. I think that's quite nice. So I'm gonna leave that there for now. I put those back again. I'm going go to the other side. Actually rewet that. I should have probably done that separately. So yeah, make sure that's nice and wet a we we did that a few minutes ago, didn't we? Probably starting to dry a fraction. And again, I'm gonna keep this even lighter, actually. And I am going to just grab just say this is gonna be I'm just gonna grab a couple of other colors. I think I have a Luna violet. Okay, I'm going to do a little bit of lunar violet. Don't ask. Sometimes you just have this feeling. You think, Oh, that color. That colors gonna be just perfect. Lid The lids not very clean. Normally, I clean with these, so it looks a bit nicer, but you can see. That's my normal state of my paint tubes. I think somebody did message me once. How do you keep them so clean? I say I just washed them before I'd feel So this is nice. This is a lovely granulating color. It's soft. It's a little bit. Obviously, it's got violet in the names. It's a little violety. I want to try and keep this warm and quite subtle. Let's go, nope, Gfte's going to be a bit too much. Let's have what you're going to have so I've got Vandyke, tiger's eye, and the Lunar violet. I'm going to use those, I think. Let's say, I want to keep this nice and subtle and almost disappearing, that'll give us that lovely sort of lost and found look. So it's ever so gentle. If you put a lot of colour in here, it gets a little bit stilted where you finish. So if it's lovely and light, you can kind of tail it off. But if you put a lot of color in here, you're going to have to drag that down to lose it. So I always like to keep this lovely this one back again. I say, excuse that it's not the best dimensions, but. Yeah, it's gone lovely and light. I haven't added actually that much color. So I want to try and keep that in mind with this piece. Right. Let's have a little bit more Vandyke up here. Vandyke's a little like sepia. It's quite a sticky colour. You can see that's not moving much, but if I clean my brush, pop it in the luna violet, and I think if I put that on top, so goes the thought that normally pushes it out a little bit. It's not going to do that for me, so let's add add a little bit more water. Ear coming in here, so we don't want to go into the ear. Keeping actually, I think actually I might have just gone into the fraction could have gone in I think I've actually started going into the chest hair, so it doesn't matter too much. I had a little bit of tiger's eye and Van **** here we need something to hold our eyes so there's something there. But I don't say I want to keep it nice and nice and nothing nothing just gonna pull that down. So if I wet that right down, that pulls that color down, but long as your water's nice and clear, and you can see that's pulling it down, and hopefully that will give us something again, it's just disappearing. Right? We need to put that um so I'm running out of space now these paints. This is normally how my table looks when I'm doing pet portraits. All these array of colors. So again, we want to do those markings so we can pop that straight on top. And I might actually put I have got a little bit of that quaodm deep gold. If you have got this, go careful 'cause it's quite a punchy color. We don't want to add too Spready. That's probably enough. It comes out a bit more, doesn't it? So if we can eke that out a bit more. I'm gonna use this to go tht. It's quite sticky now. Lob I didn't really want. Take your brush away, have a little look. Yeah, I think that's doing alright, actually. Mike, you can just see underneath that dark. So underneath the tan marking. There's quite a nice bit of darkness there. Let's have there's too many tubes on your desk is finding the one you want. So I've got so light genuine and found **** so I don't want to lose too much so light genuine, but I just want a little bit of just a little bit of something darker there. So sometimes you have to go with your gut instinct something Niggling you to put something something in a certain place, go with it. Because as you get more experience and paint more, I think you do a lot of things automatically and subconsciously. So that's the ultimate goal is to paint without even thinking. And actually, I quite often paint, listening to audio books, and I feel that quite often sort of stops me overthinking things. Yeah, I'm liking that, so I'm going to just put those down. A little brush. Just go to do a few tiny little flicks. Make sure this was a thing I would often do. I'd be so careful concentrating on the head. I'd forget about the body and not pay so much attention to some of the shapes and make sure you get these shapes right, use that can sometimes you have a beautiful, accurate head and eye, it's all that. And then you look down and you've kind of fudged the body or the body shape. The way I have gone into I haven't. Yeah. I think that's enough because there's not actually that many showing is there, but I do know she did a little bit fluffy on that. So I have the advantage, 'cause I know her. Sorry, guys. So it's always going to be helpful for me 'cause I intuitively know what she looks like. Right, I am actually going to lose it there, cause again, I can keep fiddling and not really help the picture at all. So let's say, once you've got something you like, stop. And if you get to the tricky stage where some parts are starting to dry, where you fiddled a bit too long, allow it to dry although I'm thinking I would only do the one layer, you can add another layer, and we can add another layer. Theoretically, when we do this gap here, we can then come out and add more color to the chest, which we may well do. So I'm going to just say it's all going to be a little bit more how I paint, a bit more spontaneous. And yeah, more how I would do it. So I don't ever have a goal. This wouldn't surprise my husband at all. There's never a set goal when I start a portrait that I'm going to be doing in a certain way, it will evolve as I go along. So yeah, it's a nice way to paint. And yeah, don't get too worried because if you're happy that things will evolve and you may change your ideas on how maybe you're going to do that here. And, you know, if you were very set in your ways, no, that's going to be one layer. That's only ever going to be one layer, and I'm not going to change my thoughts, then it's harder. So it's again, let everything be free, I suppose, and your thoughts be free. Right, before I carry on waffling, because it's gonna be a trouble I'm gonna waffle a lot today if I'm not careful. Right, allow that to dry and we'll crack on with the next layer. 7. Head First Layer: So next up, we're just going to get sort of the base color of the of her tan markings down. So we're going to wet the entire head and also a little bit down here, and we're just going to put the browns on. So in the next layer, we then add the dark colors on top. So quite straightforward, really. So you're going to miss out the nose and the eyes. Everything else is nice and wet. I don't really want to put any color here because it's going to make my painting look a bit odd, but just take your time, go around the eyes. And actually, let's, we're gonna miss out this tiny little section here where the second or the back eye is. You can see a little where the angle is. That's obscured, isn't it? So we're just going to come down here and wet. Does that make sense? So keep that bit dry. Down here around the nose. Don't go into the nose. It just keeps the nose nice and sort of crisp at this stage. We don't really want doesn't need to have any browns in there. Coming down underneath. Be careful. Don't that back ear, so don't get confused with that. It's easy done. So come round up to the muzzle. Under the lips. Coming down. And up. Touch the ear. And if we get any sort of bleeding, that's absolutely fine. I say, we'll we'll wet the ear down again another another layer. So then back fill it. I tend to go around the outside then back fill. Make sure it's larva and wet. Again, the old thing. Just bobble your head up and down if you just to check you got no dry patches of the way it runs around the paper and go right up against the eye. I'm leaving the little there's that dark dart, isn't it? It's not actually the eye. It's kind of what would it be? Aye. It's not quite eye socket, is it? But anyway, the dark bit. The dark bit beside the eyeball, I'm leaving that out, as well. So that's not wet. So it's it's quite a gentle way of doing this, so we are just going to add the tan color than the dark over the top on the next layer. And I'm going to use. I'm going to go quite sparing with the deep gold, but she is a really lovely goldy color as well. And the gothtes just a little dull. But if you have other colors, you think, You know what? That will be the perfect color for her. Go for it. I've also got transparent brown, which kind of helps as well, and I'm going to have this tiger's eyes. I'm gonna have those four tubes in my hand one time. I think they're a comfort blanket, as well. If I've got enough tubes in my hand, I feel confident. Um, right. I'm not actually going to put too much color over the head 'cause obviously she's not there's no brown there, so it doesn't matter. But the reason I've wet the whole thing down. If I only wet the portion where the red is or red, the tan is, then there's a risk of having a line, a water line. And when you do the layers, you may well still see that layer. So we're not actually going to put brown on the head 'cause there's no need. So we're gonna start with transparent brown, and let's have a tiger's eye. No reason if I'm honest. Just somewhere to start. Again, just pop it down and allow it. And this is only moving because I've put enough paint on my brush. The paper's wet enough. And it's just flowing beautifully. Let's have a little bit more tiger's eye in there, 'cause it's a bit tiger eye, isn't it? I sit. Is that lovely granulation at tiger's eye, and you can see it pushing the colour out as well. Well, if I add color here, it's encouraging that. Is coming here a little bit. Just give it something there. It's very light there, isn't it with the lights catching, but just something. A little bit of gothite. Again, when we do the darker layers, we can also add brown as well, so it doesn't know, if you don't get it, it's quite dark enough. Okay, I'm just popping it down, really, squinting my eyes. I think I put a tiny needle, I'm telling you, tiny needle a bit of the crackdm deep cold and a little bit of the gothite and brush at the same time. Orange sometimes can be a bit dotty. If they dot, just give them a little wiggle. Again, if you get something that started to look lovely and it's got enough color, then yeah, don't over flog don't over flog it. She's got some nice bit trans Brown brown I would like to be she's quite mottly not mottly. There's a real mix of browns and blacks here underneath the eyes. If I got enough brown then when I put the black on top or the dot, we won't use black, but the darker colors, then you'll hopefully get that mot but a little bit of color down here. That's lovely to leave almost without any color. Just this front portion, I can give you a really nice an idea of some lovely light. And you can see it's really dark down here, but again, that will be added into a add that dark on another layer. Again, take your little brush away, have a little ponder. I can see where I put the orange and actually my though I've stretched my paper, it's just bucking a tiny bit, and it's running into that puddle. I'm never the best at stretching my paper. I always get a little bit of a buckle. Even with these perfect paper stretches, which seem to minimize it, but so I'm just putting something there, but I want to keep that almost. Yeah, almost where there's hardly any paint there. Just when that's finished, there'll be a nice idea of light. Come up here. So, if it spreads over the black, it doesn't matter. I'm just not actively gonna put a lot of dark. So a lot of the brown there. And again with the eye, the little dots on the eyes, I will add. It's tricky there's always several ways of doing all these things. But I will actually add a tiny little bit there. And, gosh, you've got this lovely one here as well, hasn't she? So I will put that in now. We'll work. We'll work around that on the next layer, and I'll show you how. I used to find this so hard. I remember having a Doberman to do when I sort of one of my earlier portraits, I struggle so much. It's a hard combination. A black animal with tan markings is, it's probably even harder than just a black dog on its own to be kind to yourself if you feel this gets away from you a little right, a little bit of a squint. This is beginning to dry. I don't I can see there's a little slightly darker patch coming up here, but I'm going to add that a little bit later because this is starting to dry, let me add this and see if I can make it do what it doesn't really want to be doing. The paper's been kind to me, but it can make it a bit dotty and a push these other colors away and you don't want or I can add because it's big and is dry, it leaves quite a strong line. But I think because I've used tiger's eye it's quite soft. But anyway, that wasn't a great demonstration, either, was it? This is how to ruin your piece of paper, piece of your work. Heaven. But keep everything lovely and light. I think that's if you can keep things light, your paper, your painting will be light, feel very heavy and sort of scrub around, it will look like you've done that, so keep your actions how you'd like your painting to be, if that makes sense. If you want it loving and light, keep all your movements loving and light. She's got a nice bit of color top of her nose, and if it runs into nose, it doesn't matter so much because the dark's gonna be a bit darker. I think I'm there. Again, because we have the advantage of adding extra layers, we can always add to this brown, but I think I probably fiddled enough gonna make sure I've gone right up against that eye and make sure you do the same. You went right up against it. Don't leave any lines. Fab. Right. That really does need to dry all the main elements are sort of touching the brown. So yes, there's quite a lot of stopping and starting. So I would I would probably say if I didn't at the beginning. Yeah, do this over several days. I rarely finish a pet portrait in one sitting. One, it's always useful because we will spend quite a long time painting. You almost get blind to what you're painting, so I will say without fail, I will never do a pet portrait in one sitting. It will always be over several days. So I think I will when I'm filming this, it'll probably be over several days, too, just to just to allow me to see what I'm doing and not to rush and feel rushed because it's quite a complex piece. And if you were to do that in one sitting, I think I would feel quite pressured to try and get it all done. And that's where you rush and you do silly mistakes as time goes on as well. So it's always better to give you time, plenty of time to do it and enjoy it, cause I think if you're rushing, you don't enjoy it. So anyway, that as to dry. I. 8. Head Second Layer: So once this first layer is thoroughly dry, we're going to do the next. Now this is quite a big layer coming up. So make sure you've got plenty of time. Don't feel if you're tired or you've had enough or maybe you've only got a few minutes before you got to go and do something, I would allow I would give yourself another day or give yourself a bit more time because this is, as say, it's a fairly big layer. We don't want to really be rushing it. So, pick up your big brush, and we're going to wet down all this area again. So exactly what we did with the brown, but we're going to go back over it again. Go gentle. If you're ever doing when you start building up layers, you want to go nice and gentle because what you don't want to do is potentially pull up any color from the first. Some pigments pick up easier than others. So good careful around the eye. And I was thinking 'cause I've just stopped and had lunch while I allow this to dry. I always do the eye and nose later on, but I know it doesn't always I think I'm in a slight minority. So if you're watching this through before you paint, then if you're more comfortable doing the eye and nose first, there's absolutely no reason why you shouldn't just eye I don't yeah, there's no other technical reason other than I like doing the East. I think it's suddenly this Dada, and they come to life. So yeah. If you like doing the eye first, there's no reason why you can't. So come right up against that ear. I think we will wet down the ear again on this layer. It's gonna be a little bit. I'm going to see how it goes. I I I feel like I'm gonna need another layer, which I quite often do with black dogs. Obviously, we've got to get a lot of depth here. So some workout that you've been bold enough you can get enough color down on the first, but sometimes it's easier just to say, No, I'm just going to be gentle. I'm going to do two dark layers. So I think we actually might do that, and then we won't wet this ear down. So let's be kind to ourselves. Right. Make sure I can see a bit there. Make sure this is lovely and wet. No dry patches. I see one of one there. I have this lovely disc light, which is beautiful, and it really diffuses the light, but I can't always see one of my little dry patches. Right. So, again, we're gonna bear in mind, we're trying to kind of keep this a little bit cooler and a little bit more bluey, and we're going to go a little more brownie, as well, towards the front. So let's start with the bigger sort of aes to cover first. So so like genuine. I'm gonna have Luna violet and Vandyke. And I think we'll do the subtler sort of blues. Um I might even use a little bit of pink. I've got this sitting off to one side, so I might use the pink, as well, but we might do that on the last layer, last dark layer. So for the time being, we'll stick to the bigger bolder colors and I've just realized I need to put the glasses on. They always help, don't they? I'm quite new to wearing glasses, although a complete game changer. Who would have thought? Yeah, I'm not used to wearing them. Oh, that's better. Look, I can actually see properly. Right. So, like, genuine, una violet on my brush at the same time. Let's go. Let's start here. There's no No, great plan or wed start, only that you want to find the places that need as much sort of ground covering somehow as you can first. So, that makes sense. If you've got a lot of, trying to say. So this is, if I put the color down, there's a lot of dark I need to get down, so I'm going to start this I'm starting here. Just tapping. Let's have a little. Shall I tell you what we do 'cause it's tiger's eyes one of the reasons it's quite good cause it does push the color around. You can see how it's making that move. And that's partly, only partly tiger's eye. It's the tiger's eye. Just giving it a push around. So I still, even though I've got a big area to cover, I still don't do many brushstrokes. I still do, W I don't use the phrase much now, I still dibble and dabble. So if I'm still tapping, it's that so, Jenny, look at it. It's a magic color. It's just my favorite. I see we can get that sort of shape of the ear in. You can see she's got a lovely dark patch here as well. We'll try and get that in, as well. Again, just allow it to allow it to move. Say we will do another layer, so don't panic. If it isn't all covered, it all looks a little bit bed. She might look a little like she's got bald patches, but don't worry about that at the moment. Keep your paper nice and wet. Just gently. Let's go a little bit of tiger's eye there. I want that. I don't want it too blue there. Let's say, so we will do the flicks on the next layer. So let's don't worry about the flicks, either. Just allow it to bleed and blend. Even if it ends up in slightly wrong places, we can always just like that, pull it back. There is doing this, there's a nice you can see that nice lump of light that goes over the top of our eye, so it's worth keeping that clear. Actually, I should have reserved this area, so I won't I just won't put too much paint there, but there's obviously that little eyebrow. Uh, let's have a little bit of squint. Let's go to the Van **** and start tapping some under here. So, I want to try and keep this it's not completely covered, 'cause she's got those nice sort of browns, which I can then. Add a bit of brown in there as well now. Just to keep that color coming through. You see how that gothte works by pushing the other colors around? A lot of the time I use or choose colors because they do a certain thing. You can see that's almost taken the push those dark colors away, hasn't it? And again, some papers react in certain ways. So I know this papers quite um it allows a lot of nice flow, actually, although it's not quite as nice mark making as my beloved Bockingford. And I have done something on Bockingford, but I decided to use this one today. Right, where should we go now? Let's but I like genuine, a little bit of lunar art. Let's try and work our way down here a little bit. It's quite light there, so I don't actually actually want too much there. Coming up, let's reserve those eyebrows a bit, so I'm just not painting over them. I haven't I haven't sectioned them off, which I could have done, and maybe I should have done. But there's no not always a right and wrong. Let's come down. Make sure you keep that shape right. This is really important is the shapes, especially, like I say, with a certain dog. A certain dog will have certain shapes. I be mindful of that. A bit of a dark apache and she's red there, isn't it or tanned. So let's go into that tanned area. Walk our way round. Squint. You can see where those dark apaches are. I did pencil them in, but I've kind of lost them anyway, so I'm just going to keep an eye on that reference photo. So I'll probably put some blues in here on the next layer, but for this layer, I just want to get some of the darker colors round. Now, what I would say now, this is beginning to dry on me, anyway. So I'm not going to go I wouldn't I'm not gonna add any more painting there because it's beginning to dry. This is still loving wet so I can carry on kind of working on this. Um, a little bit of a mixture of van **** and so like genuines I kind of come a bit more to the back. Tapping lost, you can see, well, I've had that buckle. Pg sat in there, pull that aside just to keep that tan reserved. But all just say, just keeping things nice and light and not panicking. She says, Take a big deep breath myself. Keep flicking your eyes up to that reference photo. Let's get a little bit tiger's eye in here. Keep wanted to say burnt tiger's eye 'cause I don't often use tiger's eye. It's normally the burnt variety. I won't do this mouth area quite yet because that can all be done a bit later. I try and get that that little very subtle line there, isn't it? Which we did on, well, I began to show you on the last layer. Take your brush away, have a little ponder. It's just there's that line there, keeps appearing. I'm going to see if I can get that dark patch in there. Gonna use Van ****, 'cause it's actually on her tanned marking, it's very dark, so I don't want to add too much blue in there, 'cause I know it's a say, 'cause I know her. I know that's It's actually it's not that is tanned. But it's got a very deep shadow in there, so I don't really want to put the blue in there to indicate, it's a dark, it's a brown area. It's Sorry, so I'm putting getting myself muddled. So I'm putting the brown in here because I know this is a tanned section. And if I put blue in there, that's sort of indicating that it's a darker coat, part of the darker coat, which is not. So again, I'm just tapping. I keep flicking my eyes back and forth to my reference photo that's set in front of me on my iPad, and I'm just tapping. Again, just keep taking pressure away. I don't think we need to do really too much to here. Um, might. Let's have a little bit of transparent brown in here. Let's try and build up some of this into that, as well. Say, my paper is still lovely and wet. You can see how things are moving still. But the minute you start, you start to feel a bit gloopy, and it's not moving, then it's time to sort of down your brush. Maybe a little bit of tan here to keep it a little bit warmer. I'm getting to the stage where I need to stop, really, 'cause I've probably done enough, and that's creeping down. You can see that's losing that shape 'cause it actually arcs round, doesn't it? So I just push it back. Maybe suck up a bit of the painting. It might be It's quite a lot sitting there. Just gently suck some back. Draw some of it. Down. Probably add Luna van and Van ****. I still see it's quite wet, so I can still add a little bit of color. Just tapping, keeping an eye on that photo, just looking for the darker areas. Eyebrow, I will it's quite has quite a strong edge, so I'm not going to start really putting that in because the flip side of it here is very light. So probably I'm filling with it now, I'll leave it because that will be better done on the next layer. And with every layer, your paint won't move as much. So the exact amount of paint that we've maybe put on here on the next layer, it won't move as much, you know, and as you build up the layers, you'll find it they don't move as much. But I used to do a lot more layers on dark dogs, black dogs, especially like labradors, but I try to be a bit bolder these days because it can get muddy if you're not I think that's looking quite good, and I feel I'm getting that would be awful to start playing around with that now. It would just make nasty marks. So I need to I need to leave that there. And it just comes with confidence and just time spent painting. There's no real magic. Um, there's nothing magic. I can tell you, really. It's just you get to know your paper and your paints and your style and how your brushes work almost. And you just something just tells you to go, No, that's enough. Put those down 'cause, you know, you know you can put another layer over the top of that. So I'm gonna allow that to dry because I don't want to do the flicks, I want to do those when it's nice and, um, on the last layer. Again, I'm going to run the next layer into this ear and just build up a little bit more on depth and do a few flicks. But for now, that needs to dry. I can't really do that chest because I don't want this color running in. So, so, yes, allow that to dry. Oh, as I say, you can use a hair dryer, which I haven't really mentioned. And I do use hair dryers. And I would leave that until it's almost dry. So it's just you can just see it's a little tacky. If I was to put a hair dry over this now, sorry, I'm probably repeating all my classes, but it just blows the pigment around. And if I put a hair dryer there, you can imagine that we'll just blow it around and muddy it up. 9. Head Third Layer: Righty ho. Let's get that third layer. Over. So again, go ever so gentle. It's probably more important each time the layer builds up, it is to go really gently. We will be going into the ear, but not quite yet, so let's just go around. Same area. Very, very gently. And sometimes you have to add quite a lot of water to be gentle, and you just need to then suck that up either the edge of the kitchen roll or the edge with your brush. We'll do all these a little bit separately. I just keeps a nice defined edge around the nose. Keep nicely within your lines. You don't want to us as you do layers, it's quite easily to go over the little edges, and it gets a bit scraggy so take your time. Duck your head. Seeing where you are. I'll tell you what I will do. Actually, I'm going to section that little red part off, if I can see it in a little light. We will just join it up before it dries, but hopefully we'll keep a slightly crisper edge then. All right. I think that is all wet. Lovely. So all we need to do now, again, is just to build up more depth and strength. And this is always the hard thing with black dogs, 'cause they need a lot of layers to get that get them. The color and the depth, really. So, still working with those similar colors. So I've got the so light genuine, vandyke and the lunar violet. Again, I'm gonna start at the back there. And actually will start to incorporate, like I said, some of these other colors. Let's I'm gonna run through the pink therefore I drop my brush on the painting. Bull or the lid, even. I'm gonna have that pink, as well. One side, so that's potters pink. So let's start with them. So light genuine. Again, just tapping. And it's more important probably to tap as the layers build up again, 'cause it's the same thing when you're adding water to their layer, you don't want to upset what's already there, and we need to remember those flicks, as well. So another big layer with lots of things going on. And what we got here? Is helpful if I have it that way round. Let's see what I've got una violet. I'll have this a little bit more to the front as we come round, keep that warm. Go, keep our eye on that reference photo. You're looking for the docs. Got a nice sort of halo of light there, isn't it? And hopefully by sectioning that little part off, we should have the shouldn't go into the into the red, sorry. Concentrating and talking, is not always as easy. There's a nice little line coming off there, let's try and tap that little line in there. I need to strengthen this one up. That needs to be Van ****. And if you can stand, even if you're just for a short time, it's just so useful cause you can get away from it. It's very easy at this point to then sort of cover the whole lot in a sort of mono saturated color, and before you know it, you've just like I say, covered it all and you've lost the light. So by standing, I think you just get above it a little bit more and see what you're doing. So a tiny bit of lie, sorry lavender. Obviously, she's got no lavender on her. So this is just where you're starting to incorporate some some nice color. Just to make it interesting. It's where the I suppose to wear painting and a picture, it's not a if you wanted a true representation, you'd take a photo, wouldn't you? So this is where the artistic bit comes in, I guess, and you do something nice that you find pleasing. It's obviously captured her, but then it's got another essence to it. Let's grab that tiger's eye, and let's let's do Vandyke and tiger's eye together, and we should get the nice combination of the two. So that hopefully splits the tiger's eye up, sorry, the Vandyke up a bit by adding the tiger's eye with it. If that makes sense. You can see that's separating it because I'll mix the two up. Be careful. I'm not going to do that. I'm starting to edge into that red. Now, there is quite a defined edge, so I might I might This little area here I might add in on dry paper, actually, and then I can get that neater wise it's gonna keep spreading on me. So I'm trying to carry on just gently observing those dark areas. Keep squinting. Let's pick up that pot's pinks because it's a lovely lovely color. That's over the top there. Again, that spreads, and that's nice and warm. That would add another sort of slightly different dimension. Keep that more to the front. Down for a minute. I'm gonna have 2 minutes gonna go splat on my on my paper. That's how a luna violet. Nice patch underneath there. You come down. See how that spread down there, hasn't it? I'll tackle that in a minute. Alright. It's a bit spotty. So if it starts to go spotty for any reason, just give it a rustle. Gently touch the middle of where the spotter is spotter splute. Bit of van ****. It's a little bit darker here, isn't it? I try and build up a little bit darker. I have muzzle, as well, so I'm gonna have Tiger's eye and Van ****. Again, hopefully getting the best of the two. Tiger's eye. All those whisker marks can be put on later, so don't worry about those. We need to start building up some of this, as well. Very gently. Let's have the Van **** again. It's a bit like the CPA. It doesn't move quite so much, so you can start adding that in. So we can strengthen this up. And it looks a bit wrong, doesn't it? Soften that a bit. Bitar. A little bit of an ****. And we are so like genuine. Just tap that in there. So I'm just as we start to work our way through the class, which is always the case, we all start to start differing. So really, really observe your own piece. Just look for the, look for the darker areas and just keep applying bits of bits of paint, bits of color. So this is where you can start getting a little bit more individual, but we haven't used any. There's no need the lapsi Lazare either, so that's a lovely blue. It's very soft. Not too much. We have to remember to do the flick h I'll do those flicks now while we think of it, because they really need to put those down. They need to really be applied while that paint is nice and wet. So I got my little brush, and I again start in a little bit and just flick out. It's a bit scary, I know, 'cause your painting's probably getting quite good now, and you're like, Oh, I don't want to ruin that now doing flicks. I have a good friend who was a student but a lovely friend now, and she's petrified at doing flicks. 'cause they are a bit. And if in doubt, you could always do these with pencils really freaking you out. Alright, that's probably enough. Alright, let's have a little look. Let's take my brush away. Still need a bit of color there. Getting a little bit washed out. This is still lovely and wet. I don't want to quite go into that ear yet, because if I wet this ear down and allow this color into the ear, I'm going to start dragging some of those colours I've carefully put in there. So let's do the getting a jane muddle. Hang on, it. Let's put the some vague order. I've got Tiger's eye, what have I got so like genuine? And let's pick up the the vandyk actually might have a bit of transparent brown that might be useful as well. I did warn you Is me just grabbing all my colors. So the transparent brown is a nice rich. It's not quite the orange, but it's quite her color. So let's try and tap that in. Mind you, I must admit I've had lunch, well, before I did these darker layers, I was looking at her in the garden, thinking, actually, she's not that. It's actually not that red in color, but it just depends on the light, doesn't it catch her in the photo lights. And that's probably actually worth mentioning. Obviously, the iPhones and do a very good job at enhancing colors. So sometimes you get a slight unrealistic color, so it's always worth bearing that one in mind. There's a nice little flick here, but I'm going to do that a little bit later, so it's a bit more obvious. If I do that now with, you know, a wet brush, it's just going to disappear. So where was I now? I want a little bit more color there, didn't I? So let's do a little bit of so genuine. A little bit of van ****, a little bit of tigers. Need a bit more something there. Almost coming round. Touch there. Now if you starting 'cause it's actually not too warm here today. But if yours are starting to dry on you, just be careful. But if some of the areas are still nice and wet, you can always just clean your brush and just add a bit more water in it. It gives you a bit more time just to carry on. I was gonna say fiddling, but adding more color. Let's have a bit more dark here, actually. It's getting a bit. I think the lap tends to push colors away, so I really want to get that nice and dark up here. So you've got a good contrast between back her back, her head. And the sort of front, so you're getting that combination. I don't want to I want to make it I want to get it 'cause she is black here, but also van dike. And because the light's coming in, it's warming it, as well. So all these things you have to bear in mind. It's almost a bit too bluey. Take your brush away a little bit too blue. Let's put a bit more van **** on the top. Warm up again. That's why I think it's always great to sort of step away 'cause it's sitting. I just can't I'm not very good at sitting, either, but you just can't get on top of it and see what's happening. I get the impression you stand up and then go, Oh, no, that doesn't look quite right. This might actually be sliding down a bit. So what I'm gonna do a bit of gothte. They're gonna put some govite in here, just push that color away. I think some of this dark is beginning to slide down here in this direction. You see how that gophte pushes the colors away. You know, I jump if you can see me, my eyes are flicking back and forth to it. I've got my iPad on a stand just in front of me. And I'm flicking my eyes back and forth. I want to make sure I reserve that tanned marking there. Take my little brush away. Let's have a little a little look. I think it's doing, actually. Touch of dark. Van ****, a little bit of a hard line quite that hard. I'm up against the tan marking, isn't it? Just there. Try and make this a bit redder as well. I'm actually going to close that in. And I'm going to put the gothite and transparent brown, and it's going to have a little dot. Pick some bit of white a little bit thick. Just constantly back and forth from my eyes. Van **** dipping stuck to build up this. As it begins to dry, you can see it's not moving so much, so then I can start to build up some of this definition now, very gently. A lot of this color we can take off as well. So there's a lovely lump that always generally sits under the eye socket, catches the light. That's normally best done. Just by taking it out rather than trying to reserve it because the paint would always if it's a small area, it's quite hard to control where the paint flows into. That's not on too bad. And again, I can take colour out as it begins to dry as well. The front portion it's a bit lighter, isn't it? Again, just being gentle, try not to panic. 10. Continuing into the Ear: I think that's looking right, actually. Let me see how. I'm going to start putting some of that into the ear, 'cause the ear is a bit drab now when you look at it, compared with the rest of it, and I've managed to cover myself in so genuine. Just wipe that off. Right, I'm going to start by wetting the ear a bit further back here if it's wet, I I should just do some sort of random sort of sweeps, as well. And if it's wet further back here, if I start wetting here and then pulling out, it's going to encourage it to come further out quicker. But if it's wet here, so it's got a barrier of water in some ways. So if I start adding that now in, it won't quite so quickly, but we'll get a bit of softness 'cause if we're not careful, there's going to be the real obvious junction, and the ears gonna look like it's been stuck on. So now we can sort of have a little tease out. Again, keep an eye on that reference photo. Let's have a little bit, where's my lunar violet. A bit luna violet, I think would be quite nice. But what I don't want to lose I have no idea what your ear looks like, but you've probably got some nice little markings, and some let me show you this one. This was actually done on a different was done on Bockingford, but you can see how the Bockingford has reacted to the paint, same paint, and it's just reacted differently, because this is, you know, 100% cotton, so it's reacted differently. So I haven't got quite the same amount of texture. So I need to sort of add something in, so that's why as the lunar violet. Make sure that's strengthened at the back end. She's got a lovely. You can start adding some sweeps in They will say dissolve, but they will soften, especially if that papers ever so wet. It won't be very obvious. I don't It's this combination. I don't like putting too many individual flicks in, and it gets a bit staged, doesn't it? So it's trying to it's just trying to capture something, isn't it, without doing every individual strand. Let's have a little bit of potters pink pop a little bit. Bit careful. I'm losing this again, so I want that to be really strong. So before that, I forget. Let's have that the Vandyke and the violet. That's quite an important part, I think. I think it's where we wet the ear down. It's obviously gone into some of that ear color. It's worth assessing, I say, some color gets dragged into the ear when you do that, so it's worth going backwards and checking not too much colors disappeared. I can see a tiny little dry patchy. Okay, let's have a little look. Flicks are good, so we can start to do some of the flicks. Before that dries, I've got the vandyke and the luna violet still in my hand. Come in a bit, try not to go right to the edge. Before you know it, you'll be having had right across your paper. It's a nice flick up here. And again, you may want to put a few more in that aren't even there, so don't worry too much, you say, a breath of wind and the whole lot will have changed. So But be careful. I don't do too many because they can get addictive, and it's really fun to put them in, but too many and you're ruin it. Right, I'm going to stop there I quite like that. But you can see where I put that wave in, how that's disappeared now. I'm trying to get a few more in here. I don't want to tilt it because all this will move around, so this is flat. You can see some of the dry patches I've left where I've, you know, wiggled it to start with. I think that's looking right. We will put some white gash. Let me show you this one. It's quite a good example. I think it's a little bit white gouache. We've taken colour out. You can see that without me dropping into my painting. Um, so yeah, there's always little bits to take out. So don't overwork it. You can always add more, and we can do some dry brush marks, as well. But let's not What's the saying? Don't overreg the custard. I think that's alright. I'm just gonna pour that out a little bit. Ah, I might have gone. Just get the shape bright a month. Got a bit too much into the ear, one of those layers. I'm not sure. Okay, I think that you're looking right. Again, I'll get into that tricky stage. I can't really do an awful lot more. Um, what we can do I think as it begins to dry, as long as it isn't got a definitely got a puddle here where the paper's walked a little bit, but let's With the vandyke see if we can start to build up that mouth because you can do it when it's dry, but it's quite nice to do it while it's soft, as well. While it's wet soil and you get nice softness. It is very wet there. Actually, I might do. As that again begins to dry a little bit. If I could take some of that water off. Where is the transparent bran. A little bit of transparent brown. I don't do that flick there. You can start. There's a very obvious line there, but again, that can be done. Oh, little finishing off bits where you can actually paint it into dry paper. At the moment, it's just getting the color down, really and making it short. I've lost some of the brown sister. Disappearing there. I don't know what I will do gothte. I haven't used the orange much, have I? A little bit earlier on, but stick a little bit of that gothte there to losing that brown there. Again, it wouldn't matter if this was a generic dog. You would just say, No, it does it's fine. I'll just leave that as it is. But because this is twig, it kind of wants to be a bit more accurate. If you were doing this as a portrait for somebody, it needs to look like their dog. So that's a very distinctive color marking on that dog, then you need to keep that there. Start start to take a color out. There's a lovely light bit here where that It's too wet here. You can see that's just disappeared again, but while it's wet, I can take colour out just very gently. Okay, keeping your brush, ella soft. Don't try to scrub, 'cause you lift it all out. Try to keep that little bit of light there. It'll all come together when we do that, the bae always helps as well, actually. Obviously, we need to do the side. And yeah. But the moment, it's just trying to say, just trying to build up enough color. Still could do a bit over here. I think because we've building up the layers now, I should be able to get away with this, I think. Come, with this very soft light over the top, it's quite hard to judge how wet the paper is, but as long as that's still nice and wet, add a bit more. She looked a bit bored on the top, sir. That down. A little bit more color there. Runyke so don't get too bluey towards the front. The thing is not to add. Ideally, you want to have your paint brush as wet as your paper. So if you add a very big wet brush onto this, you're wetting the paper a bit too much again, and you'll find the paint starts spreading. So I know you can't exactly know, but it's nice if you can just roughly judge that your paper is that wet and your brush the same sort of wetness. And then you add the paint. It's starting to get a bit spotty 'cause it's starting to dry I feel it. It's probably not You might not be able to see it, but I can feel it. Let's have I look down here. I just build up a little bit of that strength though I buy that year. That's looking alright, actually. Strength there. Feel a potters pink and. This is quite orderly for me, by the way. If I'm say I'm painting by myself, there's tubes everywhere. Potters pink and the gothte just make sure that looks. Strong enough, let's have with the tiger's eye Tiger's eye as well. Tigers are very soft and quite weak, so you need to get a good amount on your bush. Build up a bit over there. So you'll probably be fine. You probably haven't got that puddle like I have there. I'm going to start to need to be careful 'cause I can say I feel this is starting to dry now down this part as well. To make sure I got the nose a good shape. Right, I think I need to down my brush and allow that to completely dry. And then we can get on with sort of really sort of firming up some of the detail. We'll probably do this side, get the nose in there. Obviously, get the eye, and that will make a big difference. This is best Left, almost to the end. Then we can flick up and flick it into this part here. That will give you the impression there's hair coming down. Um, But yeah, allow that to dry. I haven't used any salt yet, you may be seeing it sitting on the side there. I did some of them and some I didn't I will probably put a little bit of salt on the chest. I did ponder with the ear, and I might do. Let's let's put that in there. Because these paints are very granulating, you quite often don't get a lot of difference. But some of them showed up. And a tip, if I might have said this already, be careful your salt doesn't get wet, and I probably had it in a bad spot. If you drip water into your salt, then your salt is already doing its job if it's wet, it feels a bit tacky already. Actually, I probably done exactly what I shouldn't have done. Or your fingers. So yeah, make sure your salt's lovely and dry to get the best effect. But I'm not holding up much hope that it would make much difference to say, the patets quite granulating, and it's the second layer as well. So right, I shall I leave that to dry. 11. Eyes and Nose: So I'm actually starting this the next day. And it's interesting. Again, I've just come back and walked into the studio. I can see more clearly the stuff that needs to be done or maybe actually not to be done. This is a little bit chunky here in its color here. I like the rest of it. The ear. If I do too much more, I can see I'm going to lose it, but it does need a bit of detailing. So I think what I'm going to do at this stage, I'm going to get these eyes in and the nose and make it more of a dog. And then I can assess these sort of other areas. But if I my mind is probably to do another layer, but if I do another layer now, I'm increasing the complexity and sort of finishnss of the head, but not even starting this. So I think there's a risk of overworking the head, and really the important bits are particularly the eyes and the nose and other things sort of almost fall back. In its, um, in its importance, I suppose. So I'm gonna do eyes, fill in this little bit, the nose. I'm gonna then assess probably do this little bit, 'cause there's no reason. I'm happy with this little area, 'cause what I want to do is some flicks going up. And if I have to re wet this again, then I'm also diluting those flicks in. So I'm going to start with it might be a bit more methodical. I'm going start with the art of the two eyes and the little bit here, while I'm not kind of going over the nose area of my fist. So very straightforward. She says. We're going to very carefully see I've done a good old spluge there of paint while I was painting, so it doesn't matter. Hopefully Ys is nice and clear, so I'm going to or it down. Now, I'm only doing the eyeball. If you scroll into your reference photo, it's quite complex in there, but she has got very deep set eyes. So there's not that much eyeball on show. And the other these little bits here, obviously, the eye lid. So the bottom eye lead and like the third eye that dogs have, and then you're going into the tier ducks aren't you here. This little bit here. Sorry. So we just gonna whip. Down and I'm going to use. Where's the transpant bra. Trans baat bram. A little bit of where is the sepia? No. The Van ****. Where is the Van ****? Hold on a minute. It's just probably packed it all the way last night and I obviously haven't put that back out on my table. Bear with me. All right. Here he is. Right. Where were we? No, I'll put that down. Okay. Transparent brown, and we're just gonna dip that color in. She's got quite dark eyes, actually. Well, probably quite typical dog's eyes, I would say. They're very rich in color. The brown. Not overly dark, but not overly light. I said they're quite a quite a normal eye. So I would just do that for the time being. And then with the Van ****, it's always lovely to get shadow over the top, other than if I did, even if it doesn't show it, but she does, particularly as I say, she's got very deep set eyes, so they're going to be quite gonna be quite shadowed. And you can see eyelashes, can't you? A gonna plot that down again. It's just dibbling and dabbling. There's no sort of bus strokes. I go to start putting a bit of dark there as well on the front cause there's always a nice area dark there. I'm just going to leave that that Nisa dry. I can't go into the tear duct because obviously, that's gonna the color from the eye will run into the tear duct. I'm actually just gonna brush your salt off cause's underneath my fist. It feels weird. If for some reason, you've done this and you've carried on straight and you haven't broken large I have for that time duration, just make sure it's nice and dry. So hoover that up later. Great. So I can start. On the other little area. Now, what I'm going to do first? I'm actually going to do the eye first. But there's not much there. You can't I think all you can actually see is the eye, the very dark sort of inner part of her eye. Well, not even eye, so the sort of socket. You can't actually see much eyeball. There's there's not an awful lot to do, really, so we're just going to white that down. Air on the side of caution. Don't make it too big or too prominent. It's just a sort of it needs to be there, but we're not going to make an awful lot of it. So I just got that's a bit of van **** so. That's my small brush as well, but here still. I'm just gonna circle it around. We can always fiddle with it afterwards. I don't really want to do an awful lot more than that. It's just to say, it's just going to be there. I will obviously paint this in in a minute. But while that's still wet, I'm gonna hang fire on that. This is still wet. And so, yes, I just need to let the little eye dry, but we can crack on with the nose, I think. So nose is, again, it's actually notes I wouldn't say they're simple, but they're they're quite fun to do. So we're coming down here. I'm not sure what this line is here. Unsure what I've done there. I'm always very good at telling you to be really careful with your drawings, don't always do the same to myself. So nice and wet. And I'm actually going to use that burnt tigers tigers eye, not sorry, not bunt tiger's eye. And they're so genuine. Let's see how we go with these two. And I was saying, I think I said, sees ages goes, it's yesterday filming that. But I'm just touching the bottom and just allowing it to run up. Noses can be sometimes problematic when you take when you look at the photo. Because they kind of wiggle their nose around. It's always on the go, isn't it? So sometimes you have to kind of judge where the nose maybe should be, and maybe you just caught the camera or if, you know, a client, you're doing a client. Um, pet portrait. If the nose looks a bit weird and something's telling you that's a bit weird, just have a good look at it, it may be that it's shifted. You know, they've given it a little wiggle at the time the camera's taken the shot. Um, so, yeah, you may have to sort of straighten it up to make it look right, or it can look very odd, and I know I've definitely been caught up by that. So I'm just adding the blue of just allowing mania that to sort of travel up on its own. And I've incorporated the lower part, the nostrils gonna be painted and then that sort of um I sort of say, call it a vent I think have a feeling they breathe in. A lot of this air comes out of this slot, doesn't it or slit or vent or whatever you call it? I'm sure there's a technical name for it. Right, I'm gonna leave it there. It looks quite big and clunky at the moment. I think when we do the another layer, which I think will do, actually, we can then come into this nose and just soften all that down. But that's the first little bit of the nose done. Now, I have a look at this eye. Yeah, I think we can go back to that eye now. Let me just give it a little hair dry, and so I know it's completely dry. 12. Eyes Part Two: Actually a thing worth mentioning, which I haven't really experimented with, but I was just watching that nose, the hair dryer, I was just touching some of the, some of the pat on here, because it was blowing it slightly, it pushes it across the grain and gives more of a nobly effect. That is amazing for noses. Again, it's not something I've particularly played around with the idea, but you can see how that's worked. Anyhow, let's go back to that eye. So I'm going to put another layer. So just going to very gently, again, layering, always make sure you're very gentle. Wear that back down again. And because sometimes you're very gentle, you can end up with a bit of bobble of water, and you don't necessarily want that cause the paint just sits then on top. Back to transparent brown, we're going to build up a little bit more strength. That's on the lower part, and then I'll pick up. Actually, the so light genuine is good cause again, it's a nice blue, nice cool color. I'll put that underneath the eye. Again, I could put the van ****, but it's warmer. It will just depend a lot of it on, you know, the reference photo I've got in front of me and how I sort of see it. And again, it just comes with a bit of confidence and time spent painting, I suppose. Let's have a good look at this, see how we're doing. I might put T better go on top. Getting a little dark now. Okay. Just very dent. There's no great hurry with eyes, being gentle. And again, I'm probably a bit more confident with her now, but they used to muddle me and you get into such a muddle, and all the paint starts moving around and you almost can't see what you're doing. So leave it to dry, I would say, and then reassess the paint's dry, and it becomes a bit more clearer, I think. I think that actually looks pretty good. But while I'm here and while it's still damp, I can take out a little bit of the color. As you can see she's got a nice chunk of light here. Very gently, just wiping some of it away. When it comes, just go gentle because you're wiping back sort of theoretically, almost two layers. And it's quite nice done while the paper's damped 'cause it doesn't leave 'cause when it's completely dry, sometimes you can get left with, like, a line where you've dragged it across. And the last thing to do, I think I'm going to do it at this stage. Again, it's one of those things. I'm probably judging I probably about the time to do the eyeball, but I could have done another layer, but I think I've got it dark enough already, actually. So this is so genuine, and I'm just going to very gently tap an eyeball in sorry the pupil in there, eyeball pupil. Again, just take the brush away, have an assess, see how it feels. You can always add one of the other colors back in again, just to soften it. You don't really want that pupil, and they don't they're not very obvious. That's a nice thing about dogs eyes. It all merges into a sort of a lovely brownie. I think that looks alright. Again, once it dries, and I feel so I've just picked up a bit so genuine there a bit more something a little bit darker. If once it dries, I feel like it needs something again a little bit more. Then I can always add more. Van dike. I want to emphasize the nice ring of dark. And I think once we start to pull this out, which I can. She's got a tiny, tiny chink of light. So let's I might be a bit risky this now. What if I can leave that tiny white line just there. Then we can fill in this tear duct, and sometimes that helps gauge what the eyes looking like because it's obviously all part of the same thing. Just using so like genuine. Again, there's other little bits of light in there as well, isn't there? But we can always add that in with a little bit of white gosh that can I normally end up finishing with that. Just touch the tops that kind and sort of starts running into that. And actually, I can see I haven't quite got this. A turn there that little needs to become a little bit more forward, if I look at my reference photo, say, you've got ever such deep set eyes so the eyeballs probably here, and this is a wall around. Bring it out a little bit more. Yeah, I think that looks alright. I'm gonna leave that for now and just allow that to dry causes gonna change slightly once it's dried. So I said what we can do now Yep, I'm gonna hang on to these. Just be careful with your fist. That's Doi little part of the eye eyebrow. On the other side, hopefully make a bit more sense then. There's not an awful lot of color there, but we will go with a tiny little bit so light genuine. I just pop it underneath there. Maybe a little bit of lavender, see what the lavender looks like. I'm touching the top of the eye, as well, so it just gently blends. I kind of want this to almost, I say, not disappear, but I don't want to make too much of it. Maybe a little bit of van ****. Okay, keep looking that reference photo. Yeah, that helps, doesn't it? Makes a bit more sense to the eye. You see this needs to be, obviously, made a little stronger. There's a nice dark patches in there that comes off here, but that will be done in another layer. I don't think it's part of this area here. So I'm going to leave that there. Again, there will be a bit of fettling. I can see a bit of colours being lost. S's a bit of a streak there close that in now. Sometimes, if it looks too weird, when you're painting it, you can get a bit disheartened. There are times you need to sort of rectify something just to make you feel a bit better about the whole painting, 'cause if it starts to look really weird, you're working on something that looks like. Oh. Um, you can easily drop your morale with it all. Right. We are weird. That's still wet, and it is still quite wet, so I'm gonna leave that, but what I can do is just do this lower ear. 13. Lower Ear and Chest: That's gonna be fairly straightforward, actually. All we have to do. I'm gonna just do it a wet band. Wet. I'm gonna put, I think, just the van **** for the time being, and we can always add a bit of so light genuine. Vandyke tap it in. Sure, we'll use a little bit of sol genuine into the corner. Bush. I'm just gonna whip that remaining bit down and do some nice flicks. Okay. I think that's almost there, actually. I can do a few coming into here. So then it looks like the chest hair is coming out. That makes sense. Cool. Easy peasy, that bit. If only it was all that easy, right, while this nose is still drying, I think we'll do this chest area. So with the chest, I'm going to, and I don't think it's gonna matter too much. Even if his nose is still a little wet, if I put it on a tilt, I'm only still encouraging that to run down, so, and that's not going to be a problem. So we are thou going to. Pick a bush again. And we're going to come in here, be a little bit mindful. We've just done that here, so be careful you don't touch too much. You don't want the ear color running into the chest area. I'm gonna come right up underneath here under the ear. We're gonna wet. Let's do halfway down somewhere. It doesn't have to be exact. And then we're gonna Van ****. So genuine. Let's have a little bit of lavender. I'll put so light genuine again, right into that into the cooler side. Cool mount. Always looking at reference photo, even if it's just, you know, it's still, you know, it is obviously quite a loose impression of it, but you still need to keep your eye looking for the cooler for the sort of shapes and shadows and where the dark areas are. I'm going to use a slightly watered down version of Van **** here. I say, I don't want to add too much. Sort of color. And 'cause that's quite light, you can see it's catching the it's catching the light, and I just You could drive yourself mad, trying to catch all those little flicks and, um, coat parts. I'm trying to think how to explain it, but it's trying to let me just give you this buff again. I haven't caught any of that. But I hope from a distance, it's given just a nice sense of light, and I haven't got too caught up with, say, trying to capture capture all the intricate coat details, which is so easy to try and Well, yes, it's very intriguing to try and cat her, isn't it? But it get yourself a bit crazy with it all. Right, so I'm starting to wet further down now, so I'm going to try and trail this out as much as I can. I'm going to leave that to dry a little bit. It's quite wet at the moment, so it's running quite a lot, let's put a little bit of lavender in there a why not? Probably touch that top now. I do need to be mindful. I've spent all this time reserving this until the end is to do those flicks. Let's actually do those now. It's quite a nice part, and it stops this looking like a chunk of brown. Okay, I'm not getting too worried where all those exact little flicks are just gonna try and break that line up. Come up here. Get brush away, squint your eyes. I always find it's quite hard to see it from the other angle, which you're trying to trying to give the impression of the brown coming into the black, but I'm not always very good at seeing that. Gonna get a bit too uniformed if I'm not careful. It's come up a bit. Yeah, I think that's right, actually. Pretty. Drop a bit of water. Allow that to run a little bit more. I'm going to assess whether I then wet all this, as well to incorporate it in to stop it looking too much like it's a sectioned off area. I think I am, actually, so wet brush very gently. I'm going to come in. Be a judge. If you've got a lot of colour and maybe if it looks right to you, don't. It's just one of those things I would judge and see what I've thought about it. The problematic thing is, I've done those flicks, but see how that panned out. And again, if you feel some of these edges are a little hard, then you can give it a bit of a rustle just to break that line up. And we can put some flicks in here in a minute, either with paint like this or with white paint in a minute. We get that out. Let's try to darken that area so we get a bit more contrast. It's quite dark under there, isn't it? Again, if it starts flowing too much, I have got this on the tilt, but, if yours is flowing a bit too much, then pop it flat again. Bit dark up there. I don't want to make those. Yeah, I think that's doing alright, actually. I think I might lay it flat for a minute, see how it goes. So I'm going to use this little wet patch here. I'm just gonna do some small brush. Just dried it off a bit. I don't want too much water, it's really quite wet here. So let's see if we can just run this out. So the eyes got those nice flicks that she's got. But I don't want to start getting into where the body is and where the legs hit and all that cause it all gets a bit complex, and I don't think necessarily helps the painting. It's just a head and shoulders as it were. I think that's alright. Actually, what I am going to do, it's well with a clean bit of kitchen roll. This would be quite fun. So you get a kitchen roll. You get the edges of it, and then you just dab it in the paint. You can get some sort of creases. If you've done some of my other classes, I think the eagle, we did this quite a lot. It's subtle, but it's quite sometimes just breaks the paint up. Some of that impression of the coat. Now, while this is still wet, if for any reason you felt some part could be stronger, then you've got the opportunity opportunity now to add a little bit more something. I'm not sure if I need an awful lot more, if I'm honest, but let's for the sake of it. Let's put a little bit of luna. Yeah, touch a lunar violet in there. Just maybe quite bluey there. I probably only use so light genuine there and it's quite blue. I can do that a bit. And you do a few flicks. And so as it begins to dry, then your marks will be more distinctive. Um, et meth else. I'm quite happy with that side. I really wanted that to be quite nice and light, so taking my brush away. Let's have a tiny bit. Where is it going tiny bit of van ****. I don't want to warm it up too much, but now I'm going over my nice kitchen rolled. Mx, but It's got quite a nice bit of movement in the coat coming down there, and they're doing some of these flicks now while the paint the paper is damp, then they're very soft. You might even find they disappeared, but, you know, we do them now, we've always got the opportunity to add more when it is dry. You can come across that junction, as well, those two sections. Just to break up if it looks a bit segmented still. That's sometimes useful. Thing fingers always useful if it gets a bit too stuck looking. I just a little bit. Haven't we used Well, we're not users have a little bit of potters pig. We used that much. Just tiny bit here. I think that's nice. I'm going to leave that there. I want to keep it ever so light. Some of my earlier practice pieces, it got quite heavy and actually liked the lighter look, even though it's it's a tricky thing because obviously she's a very dark dog, but we want to keep some light. So this is where your sort of interpretation from what's actually, you know, a realistic painting, I suppose, and then an artistic painting from want of a better expression. So try to get that lovely juxta. Position, isn't it? Between Yes, that is twig, but no, it's not a very realistic painting. So yeah, I'm going to leave that there. I think the whole lot, there's lots of little sections. This is still wet. The eye is balls. Sorry, the eye is still a little wet. So I'm gonna leave this to dry for a minute. I might do a few more kitchen all marks there because they've disappeared a little bit as that begins to dry. But yeah, allow yours to dry and we will crack on and start finishing it all off, really. But we're definitely getting there. 14. Head Fourth Layer: Right, then, let's have a little assess where we are. This is nice and dry. It's coming to the sort of finishing off bits. So what I'm going to do, I'm going to take a picture with my phone. And then I will stupidly look or maybe just stupidly. I don't know, but I can see problems or things that need altering more on my camera than I can actually looking at the portrait sometimes. So I think I'm going to do another layer over this head. One where I can get the phone. You probably I'm looking at the phone. I'm we can section this area off so we get a more defined area between the face or the muzzle, shall I say, and the chests. That'd be quite nice to do. This has got quite light, and it'd be quite nice to get this a bit more defined here, though, yeah. So just a few things. So I would err on the side of the caution. If you think yours is done and you've got enough strength, let me show you I did many, many versions of this on many goes. This, I think, although a lot bigger, I think I only probably did in two layers. So this is this stage here. Sometimes I must admit when I'm practicing, I'm probably a bit bolder than when I'm actually filming it. I'm probably a little more timid. So, yes, you can see the difference. I just need more color there, more depth. But like I was saying, if you feel you've got to this stage and you've got enough color, then don't do the next one because it can easy muddy. So if you've got enough strength, don't do another layer. But if you're like me and you think, Yes, no, I do need a bit more, then follow along. But yes, if you aren't going to do another layer, let me just show you. So I would probably just do a tiny little section here 'cause it's just quite nice to section this off. So this is just for you guys who aren't going to do another layer. And then you can put a tiny little bit of color here, just along that jaw line. Being a bit wimpy here, let's be a bit stronger. So then you get a defined draw line. That's not the mouth, particularly. It's just on the reference photo, you can see where the mouth is. Just beyond that, there's a nice there's a defined area, isn't there? So that's just to get that little bit of an edge. So you can see that's just helped to break those two up. But if you're doing another like me, then just very gently, we're going to wet the whole area down. Miss the nose out and miss the eyes just as we did in all the previous layers. Coming round, Nating that little bit up there. Come down. We'll get that mouth in, as well. I will help. Gain ever so gentle. Really, super, super gently, so my brush is just touching the paper. Come right up against that eye, touching the top edge. And any other edges that touch, just so that can gently blend as well, so that's always helpful. Coming up. Round. It's a shame we've done the flicks, but it doesn't matter. We'll do a few more. Hopefully break that up. I don't think I'm going to go into the ear, just because I feel my ear is strong enough, but yeah, again, this is sadly, as we start to depart, sorry, as we go through the painting, then we all start to differ slightly. But if you found your ear is still a bit washed out as well, you could add that into this layer as well by wetting the ear down. But I would even if you're just hold on a minute. I would just do let's just concentrate on the face first. I'm gonna section that bit off again still, so I'm not going to go I'm actually going to go up to the I'm not gonna do the eyebrow. I'm going to see if I can get this line a bit more defined so I'm just that's dry. This is wet. Right. Let's see if everything nice and wet inside, as well. Actually, what I will do, let's get this edging, as well here. So I'm going to keep this eyebrow dry as well. What? Fab. This is actually a nice yeah, I like this stage. This is where it's just little bits and pieces. You're not having to be too bold, and you'll find your paint won't move as much so it's not so much whizzing. You feel like everything gets a little bit more controlled. And actually, just by wetting it down, some of this area will have softened into here, and I may have been adding too much paint too late on, so that's why that blue just looked a little bit stuck on. So just the mere fact of wetting it down sometimes softens. So that it's worth sort of bearing in mind. If it suddenly looks a lot softer and you don't think you need more color, then don't or just put the merest of hints the color. I'm trying to see if I can get that. There's a little bit of a line going up there, isn't it? See if I can soften this blue in. I'm not going to scrub too much. I'll just get a little bit of a rustle. Okay, keeping that eye on that reference photo. That's actually. Well, that's nice and wet. Let's just do a few little flicks. Even if you sort of try and copy the ones you've already got in there, just so they don't look stuck. Just be careful if you did a lot of flicks beforehand. Yeah, maybe just touch where they join and to soften those edges. What we don't want is just that line and then the flicks out. So we'll look like you've just stuck them on. Let's have Just try and incorporate a little bit more color now. This is where it's to say, we can be really gentle, really soft and just add little bits of nice gentle colour. I think this is what makes makes it all pink. Just gives it something a little different. Bit of pot of pink, going to the front to try and get this area here a little bit more filled in. With a big white patch here, and I think mainly, yeah, this eyebrow bit hasn't been filled in, but it still needs a little bit more something. Bit of lapis there. A little bit of Luna violets. A bit stronger. I have to be careful cause actual that section is quite light, and this is the eyebrow bit that's dark. And this actually is the lighter part I'm fiddling with now, so be careful. It's a tiny little minute line coming down off here. So you can get that in. Not that strong. Clean your bash. I don't know if you can tease that out. Keep looking at reference photo, see where that line disappears to. It's not there there, is it comes up here a bit more. Yeah, that's subtle enough. It just doesn't actually want to be a line line. What have I got in my hand? Let's have stick with Lunavt I think for the time being put a little bit more over the top of the muzzle. Say, it's very small very small bits and pieces now. It's only little taps, taking your brush away, having a little look, be mindful that it starts to dry, so you're somewhere warm, then you can just add that water again. Just to make sure it gives us enough time. I look white it's not quite nice and wet still, but yeah, just tap a bit more watering. Um, I've got Tiger's eye. Be being random again. I'm going down to the muzzle. Just go to try and darken that bit up. But be a little pink. Have I got pink? No, pigs e pink. I don't always know. I'm just thinking in my head what would be useful to say. Um, I don't actually know why I pick that pink up there. It's just a feeling that I want to pick the pink. So there's not, I'm not going, Well, that would gently contrast with that, because that's up there. It's, it's just a feeling a gut feeling. I know, not very helpful for you, but I have no other way of explaining it. Come over here a little bit. Now, if your nose does look very stuck on, we can always wet the nose down in a minute. I'm not sure if I want to do now. It's still quite wet, but I will try and do that, actually. I'll show you. This still looks like it needs a bit more strength. Let's put some of these down. But that. Let's hold on to the lunar violet. Don't know that one. Got the van ****. Don't sure if I want so genuine. It's very grainy, quite bluey, obviously. So let's just do I'm gonna do a bit more van **** here, a bit more strength. I want to try and keep that little patch of red there, so marking, coming up a bit more. Loose some of the green in this is the so light genuine. Coming down. Not gonna go directly underneath that eye, 'cause that nice bit of light we need to take out in a minute, but quite ready to do that yet. Just tapping capping and looking at photo. Still need a bit here. This is just me. So, we all start to differ on what parts we need to work on, so Bearing in mind, this is going to be the darker section in a minute, which will probably be painted on when it's dry. I want to lose. She's got that nice tan coming up here, hasn't she? I think I've got a slight dip in my paper here, and it's running, and I'll keep losing it, didn't I? So let's put a bit of gothte in there. It's a nice pushy color. Again, I can take color out. She has got we need to get that mouth a little section in, don't we? But it's a nice bit of lightning down here. Okay, that's looking a bit more cohesive now with that. We are now third layer, fourth layer. Losing count. All right, I'm gonna whizz into this nose, as well, just so it looks all a bit softer. So I think I'm at the right time. I'm gonna say the beauty of doing lots of layers is they don't merge like they would have done on the first layer. I'm just trying to soften that a little bit. So the nostriuls have still got to come in. All those yummy little bits like that that pull it all together, but I say we're still kind of working on that color. Brush. Yeah, I'm trying to keep everything really light still. Just checking up here. I think that's looking right, actually. Checking the flicks. All right, put. More strip down the nose here, see if we can not make that run into the body too much, but So training on the top, a bit more Van **** coming a bit higher. Try to keep that that lovely bit of light on top, so try and not go into that reserve that. Say, we've still got a nice line to put up into here, so the nose looks a little big at the moment. It's only because it's trying to incorporate the lower part. So I'm just going to try and soften that a little bit again. Taking the brush away so have a little look. I think we're doing right. I think that might be it. I'm going to start if I'm not careful. He's overworking. But what I will do just to put a few mi luminoviolet. I might just from the head, I was just coming into the ear just to try and, again, a little bit break up that ear, stop looking like it's stuck. Maybe you need a bit more extra strength, let's say, some flicks going in to give the incorporation that the hairs coming down. Else. Think there's what we can do actually while we're here. Just a few. Careful, don't do too many. Again, you can change your brush size or how big you make those sweeps. And we've got the white paint and to take color out, as well. So we've got those options to come up to. You can see some of these lines were done when it was the papers nice and so the paper was a bit wetter, they're nice and soft, so I don't want to lose all those. E flick out there, isn't it? All right. Yep. That's enough. Get carried away. Okie doke. That's looking. I'm more pleased with that. So we definitely need to do the last little bits and pieces. I think the bones of that are there. Actually, Wow, this is, it'll be in quite a nice time, actually. Let's do this before that completely dries. Let's get the mouth in. So we're going to got Van ****, smaller brush. I just comes in there, it runs out. I think the further back their mouths go, it's almost like they're smiling. So yeah, if you draw the mouth back, it's definitely like a dogs grin and they pull their chops right back. And if it shortens, it's quite a mean look, so keep it keep it a little bit longer. Let me see how that's changed to look that and I think that's enough, actually. Let where's that? Oh, I know it is tiger's eye. I put a little bit of tiger's eye in there as well. 'Cause that's really, really soft, that would just give that she got a little bit of mottling around the around her mouth, the line. Oh complete with one of her dog hairs attached to it. It's made where doc had to get to, isn't it? Yeah, that looks good. And we can, again, as this begins to dry, get some of those lines in of the whisker. I've always hated doing these. So I tend to do them, while the paper is a little damp, then they spread a bit more. So I've got tiger's eye, whether that's quite dark enough. Yeah, I might need something a little bit more. Let's do a little bit of vanike. Make sure you head them in the right direction. Again, it's just an impression. You don't have to do every single one. It's just that you can see there's those whisker marks, which are quite nice. Yeah, that's enough, I think, for me, 'cause they're one of my things I'm not overly confident of doing. Fab, I think this is looking right. I always have to feel them when I say that. I just his noses got a little bit big here. I just close that down a bit. Yeah, that looks a little bit better. Right. I think that actually does need to dry without me fiddling. I will. Just 'cause this is puddling, I definitely have got a little bit of a buckle here. I'm just gonna push that back and say, This is just me. This is mine because I've got a slight warp. That's why I'm losing this lighter part up here. So I'm being really gentle. My brush is just a little damp. I just like to get that tan marking in the top there. Got a bit of go thigh. Tap that in, I say, the gothte I know is a pushy color, and it will push other pigments away. Yeah, that's reclaimed that. Actually I lost some of these in here as well. We were trying to keep just tapping some of that gothte in there. This might not be relevant for you at all, so bear in mind these things I'm doing. Yeah, I think I'm right. I am there. I'm gonna leave this to dry. I'm gonna leave it to dry as naturally as I can. So I may put the hair dryer over it right at the very end. But I will, I will wait for it to almost be dry, cause again, I don't want to blow any pigments around. 15. Finishing Off Part One: Okie doke. Oh, I think this layer is lovely and dry, and I think I'm there. I don't want to do anymore. There's, I say, always a risk. The more layers you do, the more you risk muddying stuff. And that would apply to a complete black dog. I've done exactly the same just always keeping an eye on the darker areas and just tapping that colour in until you're satisfied that you've done enough. But, yeah, I would always err on the caution of layering too many because they will end up looking muddy. So I think we are almost there, so it's just the finishing off *****, where there's quite a few bits to do, but really there's lots of little inkery stuff, so not one big component. So I'm going to start with the eye that's always nice to finish off. Now, I'm pretty happy with all that shaping there. I don't think there's an awful lot I want to do, but I will say this will sit for probably a day when I finish, and I will always reassess when I come back to come back to it, and there's usually something little I do, but not always. So, you know, I do keep that in mind that there may be stuff I will, you know, tinker with a little bit a little more at a later time. But I've got my white gase here. I'm just gonna start putting we've already I've managed to actually keep that little white line there, which is right, actually. It's not a bad place. There's also that little line down there, isn't there? I don't need to do all of them. But there is a nice catch light, and I can actually see I've scrolled into the eye. There's actually me there, taking a picture of her. I wouldn't me. Um, I'm not going to do the eyelashes. It's a little bit tweet and small. If I was doing this a lot larger, I could probably get away with doing it, but I think for the time being, I'm not, so I'm just going to put that white dot there, that catch light. And if I feel as, you know, we finished finishing this painting, that would help, then I will put them in, but the moment I will leave that, that's looking nicer. Wouldn't use that much more now. But there is this lovely bit of light to take out here. That's quite strong there, and that will give that structure of the I guess it's the eye socket, isn't it? Just gently. You got, you know, a few layers to wipe away, but just go gentle. This is almost like sculpting at this point now, and when we're doing these last finishing off *****, you can kind of think I might have gone a little bit too long there, maybe. So I can just take the end off there and just soften that back a bit. That's probably better. I can see there's a nice bit of light there, but we need to darken this little section here. But there's a nice bit here over the top, where the lights catching. Again, the eye socket. She's quite deep eyed. So yeah, that's nice. So let's get that darker area in. I'm gonna pick up the so like Genuine, I think. Let's have the van ****, as well. So I'm actually going to literally just paint this in. Coming down here, isn't it? It sweeping sweeping up. Very gently sweep into that those tan markings, as well. And then quickly, 'cause we don't really want it to look like we've literally just painted in like we have, you can then soften the edges. Comes down a bit further, doesn't it stick with van **** act for the moment. We sort of gauge things at the top of the eye, and you can see that probably comes down a bit. I probably swept up a bit too high, so dabble with my finger. The nice thing about this paper, one of the reasons I chose it, it's very soft. So if I put lines in or paint things in like this, it's very soft. It doesn't leave so many watermarks. So it's a pretty paint for that. A nice paper for that, shall I say. Maybe extend that down a bit. Us. It's just about observing observing that reference photo. A bit darker there. Probably will soften that top line, actually, 'cause that is going into the shadow. So having that very stark white at the top is probably not ideal, so. Just wetting it just very gently and the color will run into that. Yeah, that's that's good. Let's just scrab up my pad. So let's get this. We haven't done. I quite like to get this a little bit more defined. Let's wet this down and pick up the goth and actually a little bit of that orange. Although, like I said, earlier, the yesterday, the camera does tend to emphasize colors, but she is quite she has got quite bright. Marking especially over her eye so very, very small little flicks. Coming out. Very tiny. Be careful. Again, you can do that with a down pick up the luna violet. Cleaning my brush, tiny little bit of my brush. If you've got dinky little brushes that you think might be helpful, then you can pick those up. Again, I'm just gonna just emphasize a little bit of eyelash. Yeah. It looks a bit hard, bit stuck. You can always just tap the far side to soften it down. I might then just wipe this portion. I really decide I don't want to make too much of this area here. So I want it to blend as much as I can. Strengthen that up again a little bit, get that darker area back in. All the while, keeping an eye on that reference photo. So these might not necessarily be relevant for you. Yeah, that looks good. What I will take out, just because I'm looking at this, it's looking very obvious. Is this line here? I'm just trying to soften it. I think we've done, obviously quite a few layers now, it's kind of pushed up against the edge and left quite a hard line. Soften that very gently. Don't use kitchen roll or anything like that. That's probably enough. Very gently tinker it out, 'cause there's it's nice and light here. It's real nice bit of light falling. Fingers sometimes quite good and scratch backward in. We get a little bit of sense of light hanging getting there. I'm almost losing the edge. I could have due a few more flicks there and it's going against what I say. Don't put the flicks on afterwards. But that's do what I said. Don't do. And if you're scared, you can always do some of these in pencil. Yeah, use that looks alright. Wedge there. All becomes quite picky at the end. I say, the beginnings, lots of flowy paints all quite bold. But the end, it's very tiny little movements, little bits and pieces. It's sort of sculpting, really. Take brush away. Yeah, that's looking nice. Again, I can do that. At the top of the nose, you can see there's a it's really light on the top there. So I'm just trying to take that edge away. And that's the thing with doing layers is you can end up quite hard edges. Paint forms you know, the edge of uh, But be careful. Some of these Daniel Smith paints are lovely, and they lift out ever so easy. So if you're not careful, you end up taking the paint out and you end up with a hole, so it'll go very, very gently. I think that's probably enough. I can see it lifting up quite easily here. That's probably quite a lot of that tiger's eye, and that's, say, a very soft color and comes out very easily. Tiny movements. Really, really tiny gentle movements. Take your brush away. Yeah, that's definitely enough. Right, let's get this nose in because I've lost, where we wet it down again and it will merged in. I will now paint it in, I got some unfortunate block there. That's get rid of that. We'll paint it in again, so it will stay it will be softer because we've already let it merge once, but it's disappeared too much now. I might have a little bit of liking the violet at the moment. A little bit of violet in there. And then we can start to bring that nostril line up there. And sometimes, if it's if they're very dark, you almost don't need to put a nostril in, but we will. And they usually have a slight curve here off the nose? She had just very gently. Squint your eye. Yeah, I will paint that in. Dry in a minute. I'll stats dried again. Okay, kind of working my way round that mouth. So I've squalled in my iPad. So, let's got the Ludoviolet and the van ****. We're trying to paint that mouth in a little bit. C we round. Come off here. C we round. 'Cause we did on that last layer, we put lots of tiger's eye around here. You could almost get away with just painting that straight on and not softening. But if it looks a bit stuck, in your brush. Then just soften the edges very gently. She's just tapping the softening. Really, really gentle 'cause I don't want to be lifting those layers up. Or, you take your brush away, have a little look. I think that's almost enough, actually. There's that nice line there we haven't got in, so a bit of van ****. Maybe a little bit of violet on your brush at the same time. Again, we can do a couple of flicks. I might go th as well with it. Don't want it to be too. Yeah, just enough. Again, you can do a few sweeps in there. Lovely. Alright, so I to look at this head again. Take a tiny bit of colour out here. Quite light up there, isn't it? Yeah, that's probably enough. There is a line coming out here, but I think I've managed to sort of capture that already. So I'm gonna put that in there. That's got dike enough. Yeah, I think I'm sort of I think I'm getting there. Just a little bit of Van **** here. I go know shape a bit better. Yeah. 16. Finishing Off Part Two: Okay, let's sort of have a look at this here. Now, I definitely don't want to put any more painting there, but again, I can take a little bit of colour out so I can lose some of these edges. Sort of scrubbing a little bit. Again it up the top here. Did you lets that light in? I don't know, I can actually start taking a little bit of color out to get a coat so we can come in. Let me just go grab a bit of kitchen roll. Clean dry piece. So I've cleaned my brush, taken the excess moisture off, give me a bit of squidg, so it's a little bit, an edge edge. I used to have an eradicator brush, which if you've watched all the classes, I used to use quite a lot. So this would be lovely for it, but it's um I got a little worn out and I haven't replaced it. I is a shame, 'cause this would have been quite nice for this. But this brush you're doing all right. Just take out a little bits of colour bit. Careful date too much. That's a nice sweep down here, so it's just I'm just going back over the same little area. Sometimes I won't use the kitchen roll it takes, it takes the lump color out, and it looks a bit odd. So I will, some I won't try to make them as random as I can. And if there is, there's not a very obvious curl there, is it? But sometimes it's a very obvious one, you can see, then quite nice to pick out. Let's do one here. It's quite nice to come in. Into the um, main body, even if there isn't one, just a little bit. It just breaks up that line between the ear and the body. And the body, the um head. Yeah. To do a little bit here. Gain one actually going out. Let's gain breaking up that line. And you can change sizes and brushes, if I do a little one, then in theory, we get a slightly smaller. You'll flick So you can kind of work your way around doing bits and pieces. And we also use just a little bit of white. Gosh, it goes on quite strong and you're like, Oh, my goodness, that's gonna be too much, and then it lightens. So just a few just a few flicks coming in here. Again, just breaking up that line of the ear. You can see how quickly it's fading. It's all getting a little bit light where you feel like you need a bit more a few more definition. Be careful. You don't do too much. It's so easy just to overdo this, do lots of little flicks, and you lose that lovely wash that's underneath, and you've made it a little bit a bit too much. Again, you can take a photo of it, so that's a really useful thing, Still. Um, so I can have a look and judge it from my photo and see what you think on the photo. Well, that's upside down that way round. I just find it such a, a useful tool. And then you can I think I could do another sort of sweep there, I think, looking at that photo. Which way seems really odd to me. Fab. Yeah, I'm definitely nearing the end of this. I'm unsure whether this is a little light. I like it. Obviously, she's a black dog, and we've made this ever so light, but you look at the photo, it's very light. There's not a lot going on there, but it makes sense. And it's so I just don't want it clumpy. I'm sure I've got one. This never really got finished any more than that, but you can see there's a lot of color, and I tried to do some legs, and it just it loses any sort of lovely ethereal look where it just disappears. Where's that? And the moment is nice. It could potentially be a little bit too light. But what we would do a few flicks, which might help just to kind of strengthen it up. I quite like the lunar violet for this. Maybe we'll have the van Dike in my hand, as well. So same as we did with the ears, we can just do a few flicks. What's she got coming out this way, haven't she? You keep your You know, you have a lot of paint on your brush, obviously, they kind of come out strong. If you don't they're kind of come out quite soft. So a few few sort of sweeps. Salt didn't work particularly well, did it? But I didn't have a lot of high hopes for the salt. But sometimes that's quite nice. It breaks it up. And we can do the same thing. We can take out little bits of color. But I don't want to take too much out because I don't want to make it any lighter than it already is. But if you've got a very hard junction between the two, then you can do some of that. There's that piece of cam kitchen rock? I stuck it in my back pocket. Ah, it's there. I can kind of come over those two, that that switch up brushes. Sometimes you just need one great big chunky, chunky thing, and it just helps. I'm going to leave that there. I'm seeing it's all looking a little bit flicky if I'm not careful. I'm losing the nice lights and ease of it. So I'm going to, like I say, I've been I've been doing this for the last couple of hours, probably, and I'm losing what I'm seeing. If that makes sense, I'm just I can't almost see what I'm painting anymore. So I will definitely assess this the next day, and see if things need adjusting. But like I say, I think I'm almost there. It's a little bit here. Just just make sure we finish I've finished as much as I can. We haven't gotten nostril in yet. Is it dry? I think it's dry. So I tend to use so like genuine just to do the nostril. I've made this quite dark, so it's not very obvious where the nostril is, but it comes up light there, don't we? I got a bit of a sheen from the light. I can't quite make that out how dark that is. And usually there's a nice bit of light that can come out. Between he's there. Sometimes the other flip side of it. And if you found too much colour has gone onto the top of your nose, you can very gently wipe that away. I've got quite a nice lot of light there, so managed to reserve that, but that's a very easy easy do. You just literally just wipe it away. Whiskers is the only thing, so I'll put a couple of whiskers they're always quite nice to put in. I'm gonna just used the Vandyke. A little dumps down there still, isn't it? Or you can do it with a pencil. Pencil's always quite fun. She's got a mixture of um of dark and light whiskers. So let's put chemo bush. I mean, you can turn your paper so you can get a nice sweep, but I don't want to turn to my painting. But I tend to sort of get that movement, and you can always practice it on a piece of paper. And I will slowly come down until I'm actually touching the piece. And hopefully they don't come out too thick, a bit more water. I think you can always soften any that are too stark. Bear in mind, they lighten, so don't panic. Oops, that's my traveling Excuse that. My traveling brush. That's it. Tops come off. You see how light those flick white flicks were and how they, how they faded. So a couple more in there. Right, I'm going to call that done for the time being. I shall reassess this. It may be, you won't know the timespan, but I will reassess this. And if I feel that there's other little tinkers that I've done that I think would be helpful for you to see, there will be another little lesson following this. But I think I'm about there. I can see where I was trying to lighten this area. Oh, no, I've put paint there. There's a little line on top of the nose, so I would need to tidy up. Actually in a magic sponge, which if you've come across them, there's a tiny little section here, but they come in a little block, and they're great for taking all these little splatters out, I show you. So they come in a square. I've just ripped a piece off, but they are amazing for taking color out, especially on little specs like this and somewing like this. I don't use it for taking color out on the main piece. It just takes it out too well, and you suddenly left with a great big hole. And that's incredibly hard to patch up. So yeah, I would avoid doing it on the actual painting, but you can see that's quite neat for doing things like that. And again, that little top bit. Well I've taken the color out, you can see that there's a little line, so I'll just, again, just rub that out. Try not to go into the main head itself. Say, fantastic for getting a little blobs that out, which always helps sort of clean up the painting. Yeah, I might do it on edges just to lose edges, but not into the main body. Yeah, as I say, if I do a lot of other little tinkerings, I will definitely re film another lesson for you. Other than that, I really I really do hope you've enjoyed this. It's been a long time coming a black dog, 'cause they are a bit hard to do, aren't they? Especially in watercolor. It's always a bit of a thing. Um, and all that, if you've got a black, let's say, labrador, which is always slightly scares me when somebody comes and gives me a black labrador to do, it's exactly the same. I know she's got tan underneath, but I would have used instead of the tan, I would have used the gentle, you know, darker colors that I've used. Actually, Van **** is great for black Labradors, rather than I never use black. Um, take all these sort of lunar violets. I sometimes use some violets I haven't done in this because she doesn't she's not Black labradors are very dark. Oh, they're very dark. They're black. But they have more of a raven color to them. Was she's a little, she's more van dike to me. But so you can kind of judge your colors. I'm starting to waffle on it. I'm not sure if I'm being helpful at this stage, but, yeah, it's just subtle layers and observing your piece and taking the time to sort of step away and assessing before you go onto another layer before you muddy it. Anyway, yes, I really, really do hope you've enjoyed this. And thank you thank you for joining me. And please, please share these on the projects and resources pages. I really look forward to seeing these, and I think there'll be quite a few questions. So please don't hesitate to sort of reach out if there's something you're stuck on. I haven't made sense. You want to post your picture up onto the projects and resources page and, you know, pop a little question underneath if there's something you're stuck on as a what happened here or what could I do to improve this area. So don't be afraid to do that, 'cause I try to be quite good at replying to everybody. Um, right, I shall wind it up there, and say, you may have an extra lesson following this as there's lots of little tinkers I do. If not, then I'm done. Thank you very much. 17. One More Layer: So after reassessing my Twig portrait, I'm going back in again, and I think I'm going to do another layer. I still looks a little washed out here. Um, a little top bit here. I'm looking at the picture on my phone bizarre in front of me. Yeah, so I'm just going to carry on, do a little bit more. This almost too much here and not enough here. These I need a little bit here, a few chinkrings, but I think the best way to achieve it is going to be to rewet it. Now I'm going to have to be really careful. And I think I also did this line down here a little bit too deep, and it made her it just doesn't quite look like Twig. So we're going back in again, which is a shame because I've got some of these nice flicks in here, so I might try and go around those, but again, going to be super careful right up against that eye. I think at this point, it is probably just something for you to watch because I'd imagine at this point, we're very different. So unless you feel your dog needs more layers or more adding, then I probably just watch this if either you and I maybe won't talk quite so much and just concentrate on the painting because it's quite yeah, it's quite hard to do it all, and, uh, I think as I'm not quite as bold as I normally would be, if I was just painting for myself. So I would have probably wrapped this up, I think, had I been painting for me. Not that I'm blaming you at all, of course. Right, that's nice and wet. So I have to be careful not to overmuddy this. I've gone around the nose, gone around the eyes. I've actually incorporated this little area here as well, so if I can strengthen it up. Come across here. So almost I've got too much here. So I'm just going to try and wipe this away. It's the joy of having wetting this down again. I can move it around, but I won't be taking this was dry, and I scrubbed that away, I would leave a very obvious line. A little like this, you probably see I've taken color out there, and I've scrubbed it away and you can see that line there, which is not that pretty. So we can gently gently just maneuver that color but maybe where it should be, a little here. So I can pick up. I think I'm going to use the very soft colors. A little bits of lavender, little bits of potters pink. I've got the Luna Violet. And let's have that. I'm not gonna do a tiger's eye. I think that's almost too spready. I think this is part of my problem. It's spreading too much, so I want to get this a little bit emphasized. And this a little more in the right place. I think when I put that got on, it pushed the car out too far out. So let's have a look. So this white grouse where you put the whiskers on or I put the whiskers on will just gently blend away, really. There's a little bit more Luna Violet up here, I think. Why defined edge. I think where I took the color out to show you how you take colour out, I lost. Just somehow got a little messy. I want to emphasize that a bit more. I think this color here is lost the I squint my eyes. I can see there's more color here. That's a bit of potters pink and Lavender. See if we can a little bit of lunar violet. 'Cause obviously, where the shadows fall, it's all creating you know, it'll be the bone structure underneath that's causing the shadows. So if you get something out, you can be changing the structure of the dog. Let's keep that colour away here and just wipe that away 'cause that's a nice part of light. And again, bone structure. I think I'm missing something over here as well. So if I put a little bit of lunar volet Just above the eye. If I squin my eye, there's just something there above. So it's really it's amazing. I don't know how I think I must have painted this five times. I thought they all come out slightly differently, but yeah, they all do come out differently. You have your own individual problems on each painting. I Van **** 'cause the vandyke a little light CPA doesn't move quite so much and get a little bit more color in there. That's another hair there. That's not gonna be very helpful. Keep keep doing wetting layers so wetting the paper down again, you lose that light, as well that you may have found. So you have to keep wiping that away, as well. And be careful not to do the dreaded muddying. This is white down here. Let's try and move some of that away 'cause there's ever so light here. Cross the top of the nose. We weren't tapping. I think they're probably the last black Labrador I ever did. That probably had five layers, if I'm honest. 'Cause every time I look back at it, I'm like, Nah, not quite right, still needs more. See, I do what I'm doing here. You go back over it again. And try to be careful not to muck it up. But the good thing about these very gentle layers, you are only adding a little bit of paint. The risk is not to say is not to muddle that underlayer. I might add. Add a little bit more here as well. Doctor user. It comes down. I don't want to wet the lower part of this, but I'll drag some of the paint down. As we get that nice. Dark area, it's very prominent on that photo. Actually, if I squint, I can see sorry. It's in the light here as well, isn't it? Just pushing the paint away. I squint. There's always a line coming across here. It's just gently trying get a little bit of light going to step away. Am stepping away. So it'd be highly unlikely you've got exactly the same problems as me, say, at this point. This is just really me. Et me go about the flicks. Only do the flicks on the very last layer. And you never quite know, do you? Let's see if we can make them not look like they're actually stuck. So, it's trying to keep the light while adding the dark when you're doing the layers because what you don't want to lose is the light. My little line disappeared, didn't it? You how bold that was when I put that on? Let's see if we can get back down in there again. I'm going to do this as well. Excuse me. We into this as well. Just so I stopped that very obvious line that seems to be appearing now. Perhaps a little bit of credente gold. S. The joys of doing layers is you can see how little that's moved, actually. Ways you'd have put that on the first one. I have been all over the page. Little bit there. So, I suppose this is classic fiddling, isn't it? But there's nothing wrong with fiddling as long as you can do it hopefully mindfully and not to ruin it. How's that look? I think that's looking better. So now it's emphasizing down here to me that this needs a little bit more, again, a bit more umph. So I'm going to gently re wet the hair, as well. I love the light. I think this is a bit of a strong line, and this almost needs to be dark and just to emphasize those two. So I'll up the van ****. Just go to strengthen this a bit more. Just under here, 'cause actually, that ear is lighter, isn't it? We can flick up into the ear. And then a bit dibbling and dabbling. I could put this on the tilt, but I don't want any of that to be moving, so I'm going to keep it flat. Oh, to paint a black dog but keep the light. What a thing. A little bit of the quincond gold there. Be Come up here a bit more again. I love the light here. That looks good. But we'll have to do some flicks in although again, they're going to look like they're detached. I mean, I'm just gonna very gently all this again and again. Really gently. I say, I want to try and get away from this line probably I'm not sure what I probably did. I've even forgotten my train of thought, so it? That's softened some of those flicks. I think I got a bit carried away by doing the flicks there. That softened those down. Again, this is just what I like to see, as well. So this is say, it becomes very personalized. I like things ever so soft, so it's definitely by no means right. I would hate to say this is the way to paint watercolour. It's just the way I paint watercolour. And, uh definitely no rights and wrongs. That would be boring, wouldn't it? That looks a bit better to me. I've got my photo opened up, I say, on my phone off camera. I've got my got the photo of her on my iPad in front of me as well. So I'm just looking between the two and then at the painting. The other thing I notice is the ear here. I can see that. Again, it looks starkly obvious on my phone, but not actually in front of me. I think I need something here. It's gone a little bit pale here. And also, obviously, if you do the it's not that obvious, but it's not obvious at all on her photo. But to get the waves that some spaniels have on a here. Then obviously, the darker and the light will indicate sort of the waves. So I'm going to put gonna put a little bit so light genuine just in the back here. So I've wet a portion down. I go to tap a little bit in there. There are a bit of something dark at the back there, 'cause I think it's all too light. It wouldn't be so light at the back. Its again, we're slightly making things up from the photo because the photo doesn't really show that great difference, does it? It's darker. I want to sort of emphasize the fact that it's darker behind her and lighter in the front. I think that's helped. Let's put a little bit of vandyke. I'm clinging onto these for dear life. Let's put these down. A little bit of van **** there. Mindful not to do too many flicks because we ready got quite a few flicks going on here. And not to do the dreaded overworking. Right, I can see this is creeping out a little bit. I enjoy my boss at, so it's not adding more water, you don't need to do. Just gonna push that back. Use the Vandyke Vandyke. Get that jaw line in that was a bit higher up than I had it. I came back and thought, Well, she looks a bit a bit chunky. I think it's to say that little tiny line was just a touch too low for her. Though most people do assume that it's a male. She is a very large female cocker spaniel. Um, I think she weighs 18 kilos. Well, she's a fair size for a working cocker spaniel, especially a girl. Alright, it's taking a little bit of light out of the front there again. A bit squig my finger. I've also lost the nostril lined, as well. I didn't really. That's not very, very well shaped. So I can either you can either take take color out to leave the nostril or you can put the nostril in. If we can just get a sense put touch touch low a Vandyke to confess, I'm slightly struggling to see. Here's a sheen on it from this light. So if that alters a little bit on the photo when you see the finished painting, that's why I probably need to suck that out. Of camera when I can see. I can see it clearly. Right. I think that looks better. And again, it's beginning. Yeah, it's beginning to dry. These little areas are going off, and I don't really want to add more water again because they're gonna tie the whole painting out. And you can. Yeah, you can end up. Obviously, it did end up overworking things. But you tire your paper big gets tired, as well, I think. Soy, that's a little bit of I said I wasn't gonna use tiger, I. Yeah, no, that's not quite right for that. Bit of lunar violet. It's been pushing other colors away. Such tiny movements. It's getting a bit spotty, isn't it I'm going into dangerous territory 'cause I'm playing while the paper is starting to dry. This would definitely get into, say, dangerous territory of fiddling and not helping the painting. You can't help yourself, can you? You kind of want it to look right, and you know, so But, I am going to have to stop, 'cause I am super dangerous of fiddling that too much. So as I say, I hope that's just been interesting to watch rather than solving any real problems necessarily, because, I say, we're probably quite different to where we are. So I hope this little bit has helped, maybe, and given you a little few more insights. Um yes, thank you very much for watching the last little bit. 18. Final Thoughts: So I hope you enjoy painting twig. This is a class I've been wanting to share for a very long time. How did actually starting your painting go? I always find it the scariest part, but try to be loose and at ease, if you can. Did you enjoy painting as multiple layers? You can see how it brings you depth, subtle color change, and interest. How about the eye? It's so important to take your time and not to hurry or feel frustrated, as it does take a little bit of time and tinkering to get it right. As I always say, it's worth stepping away, coming back and looking at your painting with a fresh pair of eyes. And this is especially relevant for something as tricky as twig. So we look forward to seeing you in the next glass.