Transcripts
1. Introduction: Hello and welcome to this
intermediate watercolor class. Today we're going to be painting this character ful
donkey together. This is a lovely class which highlights the importance
of adding paint to those shadows and dark areas while leaving the light
to take care of itself. There's also a nice
bonus chapter at the end which I think you'll
find interesting to watch. I'm Jane Davis. I live paint, teach, and walk my lovely spaniels in the beautiful South Downs
National Park, England. Over the last 15 years, I've taught myself the free flow technique that
you see today. Not having been to art school, finding my own way has been
fun and sometimes daunting, but has allowed me to
develop my own style. This has led me to
teaching others, either on a one to one
basis or as part of a group in a wonderful studio in the heart of the South Downs. I also run a successful
commission based business, painting pet portraits and wildlife art in my
own home studio. In all my classes, you will follow along in real
time where I can guide you to keeping your work loose and fresh without over fussing. I have over 20 classes
available on skill share. Now if you're just starting out, my three beginner
classes will guide you. Then you'll find over
20 master classes covering a wide range
of beautiful subjects. In each one, I'll share the techniques that 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. Plus I'll share a few of my tips and tricks
along the way to, as ever, I've provided you
with a wonderful photo of her along with a downloadable template for you to print out. The template gives you
a stress free drawing, so you can just
enjoy the painting. I'll be showing you how to create that colorful background, but if it's not your thing, it's easy to take out. I also want to show you how
to add multiple colors to those dark areas while leaving the light to create
you something magical. I'll be guiding you
through painting that characterful eye using
several different layers. Of course, I share many
of my professional tips, tricks and musings as we work our way through
the class together. If you'd like to learn more
about me, all my work, please pop over to my website
at Jane Daviswardcolorstuk. This can be found on
my profile page along with links to my Instagram
and Facebook pages. I'm very active on my
social media pages. Well, I love sharing my art, especially on stories
with many ideas, works in progress, and
tales of studio life. I really hope you will share all your paintings on the
projects and resources pages, as I love seeing
your masterpieces. 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 and wet loose style.
So come and join me.
2. Materials: Welcome along to this
lovely little donkey class. I think you're going
to love this one. First thing, first,
let me run through all the materials
I'm using today, including this rather
large collection of Daniel Smith paints. Or had a little delivery, I have to say I've
used different paints. There's some different
ones in here than you're probably
used to me using. Let me tackle the
background first. Now, the background is
entirely up to you, whether you do it and
what colors you use. That one's up to you, but I shall tell you the
colors I used, so you can either avoid
them or use them. I've got, for the pink, I've got cinacrodome fu, I've got ca deep gold for the goldie bits and ultramarine violet
for the violet bits. Now the donkey, I have got
a really nice collection. I've got hematite
violet, genuine. I've got German, greenish, raw umber. Quite a mouthful. I have got Joseph Z's warm gray, and a really nice collection. Actually there's three.
There's a neutral al. I enjoy using them all, but I didn't want to bombard
you with too many colors. I have got great titanium and really nice color actually
that's perfect for the donkey. It's just a nice gray. It moves around
quite a lot as well. It's good. I've got Mummy box
site, I've got sepia, and I've also got selenium blue and
a tiny little bit of white guash just
for the tiny bits of detail of the eye lashes. Now I'm the paper I'm using
today is the Bockingford, and that's 140 pound. And it's being stretched onto
a perfect paper stretcher, if you can make that out. A really good way of stretching
your paper, actually. And I will pop up a link
in the projects and resources pages that if
you want to go and have a little look at that as I say, sorry, I should
have said, all this can be found in the projects
and resources pages. It's all there for
you to refer back to. Also got my pot of water. I have got my heart that is
just about an inch high. And I use it to I'm not sure if I actually did in this
class, if I'm honest. But you may find it helpful
just just to tilt the ball a little bit to allow one
of those layers to flow. Now, I've got three brushes
today and a pencil. I got a large number, 16, and that's mainly for
wetting the areas down. I do use it a little bit, but not as much as my number
ten and a number two, which is just really for the small details like
the eyes and nostril. I've got a rubber kitchen roll
of paper towel off camera. I have my hair dryer Now that no means essential
for the drying, the last little bit between the layers is handy if you want to whizz along a
little bit quicker. But as I say, by no means
essential to this template. And the reference photo, again, can be found in the projects
and resources pages. And a template is
there for you to use. As I say, don't feel
that one's cheating. It just gives you a
nice head start and you have the right shape to
enjoy the painting process. I think that's it.
Let's go sketch out.
3. Sketching Out: Right. So before we can
get on with painting, we obviously need to
sketch this lovely little, I think she's female, probably completely wrong, but I'm thinking
it's a little girl. So we need to sketch
her out first. Obviously, the
templates there for you to download in the projects
and resources pages, take advantage of that. If you're not confident
of drawing this, drawing her out there as normal, it's quite a few different
angles to get right. So it's always a useful tool once you've taken
your template away. And I'm sorry if you
follow me regularly, I probably just repeat
so many little tips, but the they're all relevant and if you're joining
me for the first time, then it's good to
know about them. If you take the template away, you're going to be left
with quite rounded edges. It's worth looking
at reference photo, just making sure you got
all the angles right, all the shapes right. There's some lovely sweeps
around these necks. Neck, neck. There's
some really good lines here which we're actually
going to take advantage of and wet down and section off
at different places. Make sure you get those in. Just observe they're
quite confusing. Even when I was sketching
this out, and this is, this will be my fifth time, sixth time of painting. Even I was getting a
little confused with where these lines were ending up.
Take your time with those. Again, the nostril
and also around the mouth is some nice shapes. Now if you look at your reference photo
and you scroll in, you can obviously see
there's the eyeball. And then what we're going
to call is the make up. I've only sketched in the ball. You can see roughly
here, I put that in. That's the eye makeup. You can roughly sketch
that in as well, but we're going to allow
that paint to bleed. All you want is the eye
ball because it's very easy to sketch that in
thinking that's the eye. And then adding the
eye make up and then all of a sudden she's
got this humongous eye, applies to the tops of the ears as some
lovely fluffy bits. But I haven't
sketched the shape of the fluffy bits because what
we do, we'll pull them out. But again, if we
actually sketch them in, then here we're likely to
go further away and make the fluffy bits larger
longer, again with the main. I haven't put that in because it really is just some flicker, some brushes and I haven't
done the little flock again. Make sure the backs right. I think that's it. I
don't think there's any other little tips to
sort of guide you with, But take your time
with the sketch. Because if your sketch isn't right and you're not
happy with your sketch, it's going to be quite hard for your painting to
recover from that. Really. Take your time and just observe that reference photo. Obviously, I haven't
put the head collar in. It's probably quite a fun
exercise for you to have to kind of work around it and imagine what's
underneath that head collar. So I'm never keen on
personally putting them in, but that's up to you
feeling keen then, please do, but
it's not something we'll be doing in this class. Sketch him out and then we can get on and start the painting.
4. Background: The very first layer we're going to do is that
colorful background. Now when I put this on
Instagram, it was a 50, 50 split whether people
loved it or hated it. This is entirely up
to you whether you add that colorful layer. I didn't experiment,
but you could do a very soft gray layer
just a little bit. It would be the exact
same technique as just putting rather
brighter colors down. Putting some very subtle colors. You could choose to
put some subtle colors or leave a lovely and plain. I'm personally a bit tall, I quite like the color. Yeah, I'm not sure myself, so I'm going to include it. So you can either add
it or not add it. And if you don't want to,
just jump to the next lesson. So I've got a huge, great, big brush, so I'm going
to wet everything down. But you can easily do it
with a smaller brush. If you haven't got a big brush, it's just take you a
bit longer, right? Start and there's nothing
complicated about this. You're just going to
wet the whole board down with the whole paper. So donkey stretched
onto a board. You want lovely and wet. And if you're working with
a slightly smaller brush, it's going to obviously
take you a bit longer. So if you're in a
warmer climate, which at the moment it's
a little chilly today, nothing going to
dry very quickly. But if you're taking the time wetting all
down bits could dry. Bobble your head up and down, make sure there's no dry
patches and it's all lovely and wet and
saturated pudding. If you've got puddles,
it's a little bit too wet. You can just suck
some of that up. So you could do that
with a big brush and touch it and
that will suck up. Okay, That's lovely and wet. I put my big brush away. I won't need that at
all for the rest of the class. I got a fly. It's taking advantage
of the water. Okay. I'm going to pick
up my number, 101616. I'm going to use
these three colors. I'm going to get hold
of them. We're just going to pop them down. We can we can twist
the paper around, we can tilt it, but really we can
go over the donkey. It doesn't matter. Just obviously, be
mindful of that, these colors will show
on your final piece. You can go over the donkey,
just pop them down. If it's sticking like
that a little bit. Pop a little bit of
water over the top. Just let it run. Let's put a little bit of the
orange over the top. Whatever you fancy. I liked it a little bit lighter in this corner, I must admit. So I'm not going to put too
much up in that corner. Might do a few splatters. I quite like the splatters. Let's go a little bit with her. If you're finally
getting a little blobs, then just give it a little. Sometimes it can go a little. Do you just need to
give it a little? A little of all
how's that looking? Obviously it's all going
to move so much to when it actually finally
dries And be mindful, obviously it dries lighter
if you're panicking, it's looking a bit a bit leary. It will dry pallets, have a look, let's put it
a little bit on there. And what I can do
if I pull this, I'll up some of that. And you see it's being
dragged up because I'm flicking the water away up here and it's
dragging that paint up. I'm just going to give it a little tilt
backwards actually, because I don't want too
much color over the donkey. I don't want it too saturated. I'm actually going to
use that little heart. I'm going to just put the corner so it's
encouraging it to run. If I can balance it there, it's encouraging you to
run back down this way. And I can encourage that
by adding some water. If it all runs off the
board, that's fine. Sell. You can see
it's moving down. I could put some salt in. I think it all just gets
a little bit distracts. I mean, it's obviously
going to distract it a little bit from the donkey
in the first place. Adding salt in other
textures is going to even distract a
little bit more. I think it's a
little bit too much. I'm just, I'm sure I've
grabbed that one as well. I'm just going to
put a few flicks. I'm just a little bit
paint on my brush. I'm just going to tap some
flicks into that corner there that's looking all right. Let me just pop that down. I've almost got too
much water here, I think saturated it too much. It's easy done because
you can wet your brush, you can pick up the paint, and then you've obviously
got a saturated brush. So you put a bit more and then you clean your brush again. So it's always worth
taking excess moisture. If your ball quite wet or
your paper is already, if you're finding
it's very saturated, be careful you're not
adding extra water by putting on your brush. I hope that makes sense. I might just flick some
of this off my board and I was going to put
that down again. Wasn't Let's have a look. See how that's drawing?
I think that's looking. All right. Actually it's
going to look different time it's completely dried. Don't want too much of a line. Yeah. As it dries, I'll probably just
watch it a little bit and just to make sure it doesn't give me
any unusual patterns, I would suggest once you've
got your mat colors down, just leave it and
watch it for a minute. Just just to make
sure it doesn't do something puddles or
give you any strong lines. It's always worth the
things are very wet. Just observe it for a little bit until it goes off completely. That's what I'm
going to go and do. Yeah, you can put hair dry over it once
it's beginning to dry, But as I always say, I'm sorry if I feel like I'm
repeating myself. If you put a hair dry
over it too quickly, it will blow that pigment
around and you'll just find it will go very
mucky and messy. I will just let this dry on its own and observe it
for a few minutes.
5. Ears and Chest: So how is yours? Dried.
Are you pleased? Do you like what
you've put down? You may be looking
at this, going oh, I'm glad I didn't
do that background, that looks a bit leary. Either way, we will start the little donkey and
we're going to be doing this frontier first. Pick up your bush and get number 16 and we're going to just
simply wet the frontier. Just if you look at
your reference photo, you can see where it
starts, finishes. Obviously, we're not doing
the hair a bit first. So like I said in the
sketching out part, make sure you're not including
that piece the hair. Okay. We're simply
picking up the gray. Going to tap that in
at the bottom and allow that to run up quick. You do two layers over this ear. This is just the
very first layer. Just to give us a little
bit of something there, I don't want to fiddle too much, I'm going to pop that down. I'm going to pick up
the hematite again. I'm going to pop
that up at the top. Is these colors are quite new to me and it's a
lovely soft color, so I have to be a bit bolder than I'm used to being
with some of my paints. I'm just trying going
to allow that just to blend and bleed. Just like that. I can see mine's puddling. You don't want too
much of a puddle. I'm just going to suck
up a little bit of that while it takes a long
time to dry, obviously. And two, the paint
just sits on top of it and doesn't
really move around. Okay, We're going
to do the back ear, so be careful when
you wet it down. You're not touching
that front ear. We're going right
into the fluff. We won't do any more layers over this. We'll
just do the one. I'm going to pick up the
sepia and the hematite. I'm going to work right
at the very back edge. I'm just going to top that down. The Pa is lovely because
you can see like that. That hasn't really moved much. It's partly because of the pia. It's nice to be able to combine colors like this because the hematite is lovely.
But it moves a lot. By combining the two, I get not quite the
best of both worlds, but I get the ability
of the Pa to stick. Yet there's some of the nice
granulation of the hematite, a little bit more
on top of the ear. We will do a couple of
little flicks on the end. Let's put a little
bit more P there. That's all we're going
to do for the back ear, the front we say we
have another go at, if it's not moving, probably
put too much CP there. Let's have a little
bit of hematite, if I get that to move a
little bit more sometimes. If it's not wet enough,
it doesn't move. Just put a little bit
more water on my brush. I think that will do the job. I want it to run into the fluff. It just gives a little bit of color but not too much,
if that makes sense. Because obviously, especially if you're painting this without
having had a background, and obviously if you have the
white won't show very well. Okay, now the flicks
need to be done, just as it starts to
dry a little bit. If it's very wet,
I'm looking at mine, which is probably like mine now. It can run a little
bit and not give you some very nice sharp edges, but let me have a go. Let me see how this goes. You can always put a little bit of paint on your brush as well. Yeah, that looks all
right. That's probably your eye, actually, just a few. Don't get carried
away with them. Look at that reference
photo I might put that's quite warm
at the end there. I'm just going to put
a tiny little bit of that mama backster there. You probably haven't got exactly
the same colors as mine. Just sprint your eyes and
see what colors you have, whether you think that
would be appropriate and warming at the end. Okay, I think I shall leave that there and not try
to fiddle too much. Now we're going to run, while this is what we're going to do, we're going to join the back of the ear up while
it's still damp. We are going to let me
grab the gray again. I'm just popping
this down so you can see where I've wet down. So this is just for you to see as it gets a bit confusing. So we're running down
the back of the neck, down into this portion, and then down into the sort of chest I'm
going underneath. Hopefully you can
see that to look at the camera, get strong enough. Okay. So make sure, again, that's nice and wet and
you stay within your line. And then squint your eyes. Have a look at what colors you think you would quite like. I'm going to is
that Joseph Gray? That's going to use a
little bit of that. The back again, I'm
just going to tap. There's no painting.
Just tapping. You find it isn't moving.
Sorry for that pause. I've got my dog upstairs. I thought she was about
to regurgitate something. Sorry, that's not
very pleasant, is it? Yes. If it's not moving, just add a little bit
of water equally. You don't want it
puddling. It's just getting that right balance. I've picked up a bit
hematite and let me have a German War umber. And I can use colors
at the same time. Tap them in squinty eyes. Tap, allow. Really try not to over fiddle. It's often easier said
than done, isn't it? I work at the bottom. Pop a little bit of the blue because it's just a
little bit cooler. A little bit of it's
painted very delicate. I liked it when it was left, but not too much paint on, so I don't want to get
too heavy handed really. Only in the back of the
neck. Quite important. It's quite dark there, isn't it? But other bits I want to
keep really lovely, lose. I don't want to add
too much color really. It's just a case of sort
of squinting and seeing, Looking for those dark areas. If you look for the dark, the light should take
care of itself really. Okay, I think, I
think come there, we just need to do, just make sure you get that
nice sweep brown. Make sure you've stayed
within those pencil marks and you've got that
nice line of the neck. Because it's a,
it's a nice part. Okay. I can carry on fiddling
and not improve anything. So she's going to put
my big brush down. This tiny tiny
little flick again, it applies the same as
applies to the back ear. Just make sure it's not puddling too much because
you'll find you get very watery flicks and I
think we're all right here. I'm just going to flick
a little bit out. That's all these we put the maine on later so
don't worry about that. That's take care of itself
a little bit later. Just make sure I've tied it all. Ages, Lovely. Okay, that's the first
we need to do now. I can see this is quite
wet at the moment. I need to let it dry ideally, but I don't want you to have to hang around waiting
for it to dry. I'm just going to join it up. It will blend and
bleed and that is a perfect because that's
exactly what we want. I don't want too many
bisection areas off. You can quite often leave it looking a little bit
sectioned and chunky and not very flowy but that will all bleed in and
that's absolutely fine. Okay. Again, just to
dry and hair dryer is great for finishing off
the last bit of drying. Yeah. Use that if you have it. If not, then just be patient.
6. Back: Okay, so we're going to do
the back part. I like this. This is a nice stage because we just put
color down and allow it. There's no right or
wrong, particularly, it's just to get a nice feel. So what we're going
to do, let me just do help you a little bit
and put a little bit of color so you can see
how far I've wet my paper. So I'm probably
only going to go up to there. Hopefully
that makes sense. And we can drag out, once we've got some color down, go really carefully
round the face because these are quite important
lines we can tinker. But it's nice to get it
right to begin with. It's always easier to get
it right to start with, isn't it, than trying
to rectify it later. Okay. Hopefully you can see. Can you see that clear enough? Probably a little
bit more color down. So we're wetting this
portion down here. Go a little bit further
out, just attach. Okay. Again, I've
blasted my hair dryer. My paper is nice and warm, so make sure that it's not drying as you
apply that water. You want it nice and wet a little like the background if he
did the background. Okay. Now, as I say, there's no real right or wrong and obviously you're going to have different colors than me. But I'm going to start
at the very top and I'm going to use the raw umber. I'm just going to touch you, see how beautifully
they just blend. I'm going to pick up the hematite as well and I'm going to have the
little bit the blue as well. Squinting my eyes.
I can see there's a two colors on my
brush at the same time. I can see there's a line here. I'm just tapping that in. Say, trying to stain neat
up against the face. Put a little bit of water
there if it's not moving. Just be mindful if you
keep adding water, you'll obviously saturate
it a little bit too much. Just be a judge your own piece. Again, it's quite nice to get a strong part up against the
face. I'll tell you why. Because this area here, front of the face is very pale. We won't put a lot
of color there. We need something to define, it should do the trick trying to get a little bit
blue in there as well. You don't have to go
all the way down. It's just enough
for the eye to go. I can see see where
the face joins. Okay, then there's
another nice line which I found lovely, just
this little one here. So I've just tapped a
little bit the hematite, a little bit of the umber. Say there's really
no right or wrong. You're just making
nice patterns really. Okay, I'm going to
pop a little bit, Let's put those two
cons down for a second. I'm going to hang onto my
blue and I'm going to pick up the Joseph Gray. Let's get a little bit of
strength down the bottom here, just so again you can define
where those edges are. Okay, Clean your brush. Now if you've got
color underneath, it's going to show a bit more. We've covered the
body a bit more. If you're working on a
white piece of paper, you might find that
there's not enough. You need to add more colors. Again, it's always just to be
a judge of your own piece. By pulling that out, you can see how that paints moved along. We can so as it begins to dry, we can soften it
so we don't end up with that hard water mark. But it's allows some
of that paint to move. If I got hold of here, let me just put that one down. I'm going to pick up
the hematite again, just going to make a little bit, a bit stronger as
it begins to dry. The paints won't
move as quickly, so you get a little
bit more definition. Doesn't move quite as much, but these are quite
spready paints, so it's not be giving
a very good example. Just say, just look
at your own piece. If you want a little
bit more warmth, I might add a little bit. The mummy, just a touch, working on those same lines. Okay. Again, you can keep fiddling and it
doesn't get you anywhere. I think I'm going to leave
that to dry and see how that goes a bit like
the background. If you did the background,
just watch it for a minute, see how it blends. But before I
actually leave this, we need just to do a
couple of the flicks. I've picked up my
little tiny number two, we need to just flick
out some of that, a little bit of coat
that's at the bottom. If you feel that's not moving enough, you
haven't got enough. You add just a tiny little
bit of paint on your brush, but you want to do these flicks. While this is lovely and wet, they will look like
they've been stuck on. While I got my little brush, I can just make sure I've gone lovely and neat up
against this face, and I can do a few on the back. This is not that obvious
on the back, is it? But let's do just a
couple lovely, right? What I need to do also
is just to make sure this doesn't leave me with
a nasty watermark bill. A kitchen roll. Just dabbing. You can see when you're getting there, it's
softening again. You can almost at your finger and spread it out a little bit. What we're trying to avoid is
that very strong watermark. It can always be
softened at the end by taking it out. Don't
panic too much. Again, I say, I would just
suggest just watching it. I like what's appearing. There is just enough. I don't want a lot, I
want it to be very light, very loose and not too
much detail there. And you'll be surprised
how little paint you need to achieve that. I say most of the detail and
important part is the face. Don't get too carried
away with your paints.
7. Head First Layer: The next little bit
we're going to do is the first layer over the head. I'm going to pick up number 16. We're going to wet down. I'm going to do, hopefully
this useful trick for you. Say this is just for you. But I think it's fairly self
explanatory around the head. What we're going
to do, maybe it's not that self explanatory. We're going to go
round the eyeball. We're going to cover what was
going to be that make up. You can see that
if I put a little bit more color on there for you. We're leaving the eyeball clear. We're going round, so we're filling in what
we haven't filled in around this lease top part and then obviously around
the round the nose, then back fill it, so again, make sure
it's nice and wet. And likewise, if you've
hair dried it quite often, if you start at the
top, you've hair dried, you'll find it's
starting to dry already. Sure it's nice and
wet, but not puddling. This line is quite important. Make sure that's,
you've got it nice and snug and you've stayed
within your lines. Okay. It's quite a scary layer
When I ever start these, it's like, oh my
goodness, it's all white. And how am I going
to start this? But this is a fairly easy thing. So we're going to pick up, it's going to be a base layer, I suppose it's just
getting some paint down by putting one layer, the next layer we
put over the top, the paint won't move
quite so quickly. Just feel you're
getting a bit more confident that there's
something there already. You've added some color in. I'm going to start off
with this great titanium. Now, whatever color
you've chosen, make pick up a one of
your paler colors. You don't need too heavy. We're literally just going
to just tap color in. I would avoid putting too
much color on the front, but we're not getting too panicty about anything,
We're just tapping. We're putting most of the color is in the
back of the head. This is a lovely spready paint, which does a good job
at moving around. If yours doesn't, just add
a little bit more water. Don't be mindful if
it's really puddling, it's just going to sit
on top of your water. But as near as you
can get to it, I'm actually going to
pick up a little bit of the hematite and just pop a little bit
of that on the back just to get a little bit
more color down again, just tapping and allowing. At this stage we're just
putting color down, adding. We're not trying to look for
those darks at the moment, we're just getting
something in there. Okay, let's pop that
one down again. Let's pop the gray down and we're going to pick
up the Josie warm, starting right at
the very bottom and put underneath the chops there. Again, we're going to tap and allow to be really
careful to make sure you stay within
those lines because they're quite important
to get that shape right. Keep tapping. Keep moving it up. It gets a bit paler to
the front, doesn't it? We still want a bit of color
there. Move it around. We'll put all the nostril
and things in later. Don't worry with the nostril. Just go over the top of
it and we're going to take some of that color out. You can see where the
actual dark nostril is. Where it's it's
lighter, isn't it? But we'll just take the color. Trying to reserve it, you'll be left with
quite a hard line if you try to reserve
that and go round it. Okay. Have a look.
Put your hand away. See what you think.
Squint to that photo. There's a little bit of dark. Just goes up above that top
of that nostril, isn't it? A little bit there.
That's me saying. I'm not trying to put
too much detail in. Okay. Now this is a
stage where you can, as always, over fiddle
this is a baseline. We're going to pop another layer down in a minute and
then that's when we can tinker and take the
color out, add more color in. But this is just to give us, when we start the next layer where we'll add more detail in. It just gives you a little bit more confidence because
there's something there, you're not staring at a
white piece of paper. So again, that just needs to dry thoroughly and
then we can move on.
8. Front Leg and Chest: So let's fill in
the rest of her. Okay. Number 16, brush. And we're going to
do pretty much all, see why I haven't gone very
well around my lines here. Yeah, we're going to wet down everything that's
white, basically. We are also going to just go into this bottom
section here as well. Hopefully you can see that,
you see that line runs. And we're going into that
little chest area we did on the very first lesson. Carefully around the chops, if its a little bit you
need to touch the muzzle. If it bleeds a little bit
that's absolutely fine. Then we're going to wet pup a little bit of gray there so you can see just
about that far. Again, little like the body will pull that leg down in a minute. We're not doing back leg, we're the front again. Just squeeze your
head up and down. Might switch brushes
at, let me pick up. Once you get a smaller brush, you feel like you have
a little bit control working with a big brush. Nice sometimes it can
feel a bit chunky. Okay, This is a little
bit like the back. We're just putting a little bit of color down just to give us some strength and we can sort of strengthen again. If
you squint your eye. This is sort of
darker, isn't it? The chest. The
front of the chest. So I'm going to pick
up I quite like it. A bit of a long
mouthful, isn't it? But the german,
greenish, raw umber. But if I say raw umber, hopefully you know what I
mean. And the hematite. And let's might even have a little bit of
the book site as well. Let's do Josh Gray. Let's have the four
tubes in my hand. Right. Just so I've
picked up well, I got a the hematite and
the raw umber again, just tapping, allowing that is going to bleed
into the white paper. That's just what we want. These are quite
new paints to me, and they are particularly
lovely colors. Shall I say, not paints, the umber and the
hematite there. The donkey actually came about because I was testing
out the colors. But all I like these, these are lise, are
perfect for this donkey. Okay. Let's have a little
bit of Joseph, and we just pop a little bit down that leg. Just tap that up. Say I want it ever so light. I really don't want to
add too much color and too much strength anywhere. Let's go back to the Uber. If I gain, I squint my eye, I can see there's a little
line coming off here, just above the muzzle Again, just tapping that in again because I've got color
underneath that. Is that pink? I'm going to be a little fled that I
have got color there. If you're working
and you didn't put the color underneath and you
didn't do that background, then just be mindful, just look at your own piece. See where you see where you need the color and the strength. Okay? We need to get a
little bit up here as well. So that's the um, but, and the hematite again, just pop it on my brush
and allowing it to move. That's a little bit of Joseph, just to cool it down a bit and give it a little
bit more strength. Again, be careful, go around, make sure we get that
sort of shape right. A little bit of box. Just tap that down.
Just to give that line. You can see the one
of the mini lines. It's almost enough. I've already don't want to
put a huge amount of color on the front of that
leg because you can see there's not a lot there. And it's nice to keep
it as I say, ever. So lights talk about how
little paint you need to get. Something lovely and soft. A tiny bit of the gray titanium which I've just popped on
my brush from the table. Cheating and got hold of it. Okay, again, a squall,
squinting of eyes. I'm just flicking my
eyes back and forth. I think that's enough to say. I want to keep, I'm mindful
to keep it ever so soft. I've got that pink underneath so I can see that's
coming through. So I don't need to
add too much color because I've already
got some color. If you feel, let's say that's
a little bit too pale, just tap a very soft color in, let's say I would be
careful not to do too much. Let's just put some
of these down. We just need to pull that
leg down a little bit. Say like we did with the back of the body which
is going to touch the end where it's wet and
just pull some of that down. Obviously, the reference
voted doesn't show the leg going very far down, so I don't think we need
to follow that photo. Screech your finger.
Just make sure you don't left with those
sort of water marks. That's what you want
to try and avoid. Make sure we've got net. The back leg will go
in a little later. Checking everything's
tidy around here and I need to stop again. Just allow that to dry and it's always better if
you can to dry on its own, but I tend to with a hair dryer over the
very last stages.
9. Head Second Layer: Okay, let's get that
second layer on the head. I'm going to do a little bit ear and a
little bit down here, it's quite a big
layer, this one. Make sure you have time and you're not rushing to
do something quickly. Right? Swatch brushes. Actually, let's
start with number 16 so we can wet
everything down. I'm not sure if I put
color on my brush. It's going to be very helpful because it's not
going to show up. But we're going to be doing the back of the ear.
Let's start at the top. Wet that down. Now, when you're wetting down
a second layer, keep everything as
light as you can. You just let the brush fall. If you end up with more water, that's better because
we always suck it up. Rather than moving
the paint around, especially some of these
granulating paints, they move quite easily. And we're coming down to
the back of the neck. We're wetting down what we did, partly what we did on
the very first layer. I hope that makes sense.
I hope you can see that running down there, coming around to the
underneath the chin. I suppose you can
call it the chin. By doing this, we're just
allowing all these layers, all these little section parts to hopefully soften
into one another. Sectioning off is wonderful because it can
control where you, well, that paint goes to, but it can be left
looking a bit choppy. So by wetting them all down again and letting
them all join that, you're letting them
soften together. Working well, way down again. Around the eye,
around the eye ball. So we're going to
put that make up on, in this layer, what
I call the make up, the dark, lovely chocolate
rim they have around. Now, if you're working
somewhere warm or like me, you've put a hair
dryer over this again, it's going to start that back
of my ears, it's not dry, but it's definitely going off because this layer will
take a little bit of time, just keep an eye on it. If it does start to dry and everything else is
still damp or wet, you can just add
a little bit more water we work our way through. If I haven't mentioned it and
you're working somewhere, just add a little bit
more water as long as every along with all of the
part we have just wet down. Still wet or damp. I
hope that makes sense. If it starts to dry
and you get a dry area and you end up with
water marks again, all get a little bit messy. Okay. I'm just taking
my time to make sure all those bits are covered. If you duck your
head up and down, you can see a little
dry patch there. Dry patches, if you leave one, the color will just
whizz round it. It's not the end of the world, but it can look a little bit. Yeah, it won't be,
it's a very flowy. Okay, I'm going to swap brushes, I'm going to go back
to my number ten. Now, if you look at
your reference photo, you can see where
the dark is and that's what we're going to
be predominantly working on. And I'm going to be mainly
working from the Umber, the hematite, Joseph Gray, and the mummy box site. Mainly, who knows, I might put a little bit
of blue in here as well. Let's put that mama down for a minute because
that's two mini tubes. And I'm going to start from
the top and I'm going to pop a little bit of
cool, warm color. But it's a cooler, it's generally a cooler color, even though it says
warms a darker color. Just want to put a little
bit of strength there. I can put a little bit hematite on the top just to get
that moving around. Just give it a little
bit more color to it. Best thing is to tap and
leave all blend well, putting that fluff
around the ears. But then we're going
to have to leave little bits to dry
a little bit more. But while this is loving wet, so we want to put down the bits that are going to
spread the most. As it begins to dry, we'll do the make up, but because it's drying, the paint won't move
quite so quickly. So we want to crack on with the bits that
we want to blend. I can see slightly
drawing on me, so just be mindful that it's
all stays nice and wet. Now as I come down
and there's a lot of, again, if I squint my eyes, there's a lovely sort
of markings here. Again, I'm just tapping
and allowing that to move. It sort of comes
around, doesn't it? It's quite dark underneath
sort of where that chin meet. It's very hard sometimes
for me to teach this because if I'm painting on
my own, I'm quite random. So I have to be very mindful, so I disappear off and. I'm not concentrating and I'm not telling you what I'm doing. I think it's an instinct thing. The more you do, the more
confident you will become. And the more you
go, oh yeah, no, I need to do that and
I'll work over here. It's just a confidence
and a practice thing, knowing how your paints react. The paints will act
slightly differently. Whatever you choose to use, you may be even using
the exact same as me, but you have a different paper, so they will react
differently to the paper. Just gaining that confidence of how your particular
paint and paper work. Now there's a nice dark area
down here, we get that in. It's going to blend and bleed. That's perfectly fine. You can see how that's lovely. The bottom here,
where the muzzle is, is quite dark already. I did an okay job
on the first layer, but if yours is a little pale, you can add a little bit
more strength there. We can start to work
around that nostril. You can see there, we're not going to
put the nostril in, but you can see
where it flares out. As it flares out, it
leaves a little shadow. Just start tapping
some little shadow in. Okay. Just watch your paper. If it's beginning to dry at all, you can just pre clean water. You can tap a little
bit of water in. If you're not working
on stretch paper. You find some bits
of buckle made, buckle and the ridges will
begin to dry quicker. Sorry, I can see it
sickening, big puddles there. Again, I just want to put a little bit more
strength for the back here. I can see if I squint, it
needs to be a bit darker. I've done this as I say, four or five times and
you'll put different, slightly different more that
does, doesn't make sense. You will put different
strengths of paint on your brush at different
times and have a look. See how you feel if it's
gone a little bit too gray and a little bit more
warmth, vice versa. I'm going to put
a little bit more hematite and that's just a
bit warmer, a bit too gray. Say as we progress
with the classes, we're all going to get
to different stages and look different. Now, this is to put a little
bit more water there. Just begin to dry a little bit. Just a bit more water. Continue now the head collar is a bit confusing because it's covering up some
of what's there, some of the structure,
we can get a good idea. It's quite nice to
be able to work. Quite often I will get a commission piece
like this and there's a head collar on then they
don't want the head collar on. I generally don't
like putting collars on dogs or horses and bridles. You have to be able to be able to work around it and
see what was underneath. It's as easy, but I think we can get a pretty
good idea on this one. Just above the going, sort of going above the eye. Say if I squinting, there's
a nice lump of color there. Take your brush away,
have a little look. I still think I want
a little bit of strength up top on
the back of that. Next I'll just put
a bit of hematite that's put a bit of
a war umber as well. Use that say, be a guide little. You will know what colors
we really need adding. So if you think it needs
a certain color, add it. Quite often our instincts
are right, right. I'm just going to
pick up, as I say, actually I'm going to
pop some of these down. It's going to be too
many paints in my head. I'm going to pick up
the great titanium. And a little bit of blue, no, it's a tiny spit. I just want a little
bit of color. Just something in the
front here again, there's a nice line if
you squint your eyes. And there's a nice line that runs little bit of a
chunk of color, isn't it? Because underneath
the nose bend that he color a little bit. Up top here, you want to tie. Need a little bit of color
on the front, but not a lot. So I'd go very gently. How's yours looking? I think I'm almost getting
there, actually. I'm not sure if I want to
add a huge mat more color. So I'm going to put
these down for a minute. I'm getting a
disorganized here that went down there matters. All right. I'm going
to pick up the S. I want to do that that. Darker fluff that goes
round that front ear. So I'm going to
start at the bottom. Just tap that in white up there. You see you're going, you're
touching the white sort of the dry area of the paint
paper and then working up, almost got, that's almost pain painting these little things
suddenly like oh look, I can see them coming together quite nice When you get
that ear in, isn't it? In the tops of the
ear? Just blending that, just gently down there. Squidge bit of a squid finger. I think I've got a little
bit of a dip here on this. It's just sitting in
a bit of a puddle. It's moved a bit more
than I wanted it to. P is a lovely color, it's very rich, very strong, doesn't granulate, and doesn't generally move very much either. It's a good color to get a
little bit of control over. We will do some
flicks in a minute. It's quite wet at the moment. I don't want to flick, it needs to dry a tiny bit. If I do it too quickly,
when it's wet, you'll get very thick. Flick, flick a bit
of a tongue tie, just picking up my number. I just need a little
bit of strength to say as you work your way a long, you'll see bits
that need adding, a little bits of strength
that needs to adding to it. Just tap those in. Keep an eye, make
sure everything's I'm delay is beginning
to dry a little bit and actually I think I'm
almost done so I won't add any more water strength. Maybe just up there. Definitely quite puddly down
this little section here. I don't think I
did an amazing job of stretching my paper. I want to try and find
that line in there. More strength
underneath the chin just to get that lovely
sort of line up there. No, I got to be careful
because there's little parts. I can see it almost dry. So I think I need to be a bit careful of going into that area
as it begins to dry, and I don't really want
to wet it down again. Um, it's all right. Just hang on to
that. Hema tight. Just there's a nice line
that runs from the. Always just squinting and
looking for the dark. Okay. Would you need to be
mindful of that top of the ear because she be need to dry and we need to put the
make up round to it. So a little bit of
multitasking going on, so just gently flick out
some little fluffy bits. Be careful a must
leave up forget, you don't put your Probably
a better angle than me. I'm working a little
way away from this. Yeah. Mind you don't put
your arm in it easy. Done little bit down there. Okay. That's probably enough. Right. This is beginning
to dry quite nicely. And it's, if you've got a
little bit of rough paper, you can see that the tops are
beginning to sort of dry, but you've still got some, it's still damp but
it's not soaking. Bi means if it is the hang on because we don't want
this to move very much. I've picked up sepia, tiny little brush and we're just going to put that eye
make up on so we're going right around the
eye really carefully. You see how that
sticking just enough. It's just give me
enough softness without whizzing across the
page like some paints do. Now again, a little bit, be careful not to put
your hand in it as ever, working a little away
from the camera. It doesn't make sense to say I'm working a little way
away from my piece. I don't want to get my head
underneath the camera. You really don't need to
see the top of my head. So it's as I'm always working a little way
away from my paintings. I'm doing these glasses. Say again. Take your hand
away. See what you think. If it's weeded a bit. Mind
she stayed quite nicely, actually in position, but you can just
gently sculpt it off. So clean your brush. Take the excess moisture if you don't want to add too
much water at this stage. And then you can just
gently sculpt it. I'm just going to pick up my hematite a little bit more strength
over the top of that eye. Nice off color this one. It's a bit blend, nice. On the finishing off stage, there's lots of
little bits we do. It's going to look
a little unfinished at this stage because as sayinewlittle bits we do to pull it all together. If it's looking a little
unfinished, then don't panic. There's always an ugly stage. I'm not saying this
is the ugly stage, but there is always
an unfinished look. At some point using
this technique, I just want a little bit
of that box sit up there. Just kept hold of
my little brush. It doesn't really
matter too much. Just felt like I needed a
little bit of warp there again. I'm just here, you can see a bit of a lighter,
warmer color up there. But I'm just going with
my gut instinct really, and just trusting that
my judgment is right. So you have to look at
your own piece and go, yeah, something that's
not quite right. I need a little bit stronger there if you're sitting
down to do this. If you can just stand
for a minute and have a look and get over the
top of your painting. It's quite useful because
you can see here, maybe what you can't see
when you're sitting. I'm liking that,
especially if I squint. It's hard with the
eye not being done, but that's just my
way of doing things. I always like to leave the eye
to the end. Who knows why? I can't give you a very
good answer to that. If you like doing eyes first, there's nothing to stop you doing the eye first
in these classes. But it's just how I go about it, just adding a little
bit more tiny, a little bit more strength,
the gray in there earlier. But right, I am getting to this stage where I'm going
to fiddle and ruin it, which is easy done, isn't it? So I'm going to allow that to dry and then we can
fill in that eye.
10. Eye: Right? You can really see her
coming together, can't you? But let's do the eye, because that really
will make a difference. So we're going to be working
well with a small brush. I'll say mainly to start
with nice and simple. We are going to wet the eyeball. Now, at this stage,
if you have stood, I would suggest sitting, take the weight off your legs so you can get nice and close. Sorry, being distracted. Okay, It's nice and wet. And then just literally
just painting that in. There's nothing
complicated about this. Whizz it round, bear
in mind the alas, The strength is
underneath the eyelid. You want slightly less
paint at the bottom. It doesn't really
matter too much. You just want so you want to touch that
eye makeup we put in. If it gently bleeds and blends,
that's absolutely fine. That's all we need to do
for that a little bit. You can whizz a hair
dryver straight over that because hopefully
won't be too puddly. If it has puddled, then suck a little bit of
that paint up and just allow it to go beyond the puddling stage
of as you put a hair dryer, you fight, I whizzes up
the donkey. So yeah. Okay, back with you little
brush and we are going to all wet down the eye again. Exactly the same. Stay
within the lines. Go careful because you can see how easy it is to take
those colors out. Now I'm going to
pick up the sphere. Is it switched over the Joseph Warm gray so you're slightly darker gray If you've got a gray
you're working with. And we're going to now scroll into your eye on whatever
device you're looking at. And you can see there's
a lovely chunk of light, but the rest of it is
actually quite dark. So we're just going to start
tapping stars at the top. Work your way around, mainly. Take your brush away.
See what you think. See where you feel you need that darkness quite dark
to the back. Just tap. Try not to move your
brush around too much. Just tap color in
always you'll be keep rustling it around a little bit. Take your brush away,
add a little bit more. Put a bit of that
darker grainer. A little bit more strength.
Take your brush away. You can't really see the pupil, but there is a area
where the pupil is, you can just tap that
in as it starts to dry. Make sure we that
shape really nice. This is just take your time. Shape of the eye is
quite important. If you have it pointing down, make it look a little cross. If you have it pointed
up a little bit, that will give a sort of soft
and more inquisitive look. It's amazing the difference just the slightest
angle will make. So keep it all upwards. I would have suggested rather than, I hope
you know what I mean, you can see on the
reference photo that a slight tilt upwards and I think that's what gives her
the love cute gentle look. You start having it
pointed downwards, she'll start looking a
bit stern and cross. Okay. I'm taking my brush away. I'm really liking what's
there at the moment. I'm okay. Okay. I always
uses this as an excuse, but I am a little
way away from it, so I can't quite see as close. I'm not as close
as I'd like to be. So I'm a little way
off trying to do this. But have a look at you, take your brush away,
always sort of look at it. You can keep dabbling and focusing too closely
on little bits. It thing is, lift your
head up and have a lot and you get to see
the overall picture. But I'm liking how that is. That just needs to dry,
so don't fiddle too much. Wet hair dryer over it and if you are finding it's
getting muddled again, drying it and starting
again always helps. If you keep muddling it around, you generally don't get
very far, you just have to. Let's go. Right, I
need to let that dry, say then hair dry. And start again if you
feel you need to crea. Now, I can see that
like I was saying, this could do, it's not quite right, the shape
is not quite right. I'm going to rewet it. Hopefully, I was saying
if you feel you were getting all a little
bit muddled and it wasn't quite
working out for you, you can re it just like that. Again, sometimes purely
by rewetting it down, you allow some of those colors to blend and
bleed a little bit more. I need to have
another look at that that had a little bit too
much light at the top. I need to put a bit, we're going to use a CP, let's tap that in that sometimes you put the
most tiny little thing, You're like, oh, that's it
And I've done it, I'm there. That's why it's always useful to keep taking your brush
away and having a look. Yeah, I think that
whatever I did, sometimes you don't even
know what you've done. But I would always
suggest whatever it is, just stop if you
like what you see. And it's something
I maybe I haven't or I'm going on in explaining
other things if you like, what you see, just because you may have cracked
it quicker than me. All right. Now, pick
up your little bit of white G. I give that
a good old rustle. You want this lovely
and thick and creamy. It's worth maybe just
testing on a little bit of scrap of paper so you get it just to the right
sort of consistency. And we're going to put
those eye lashes in, you really dinky
little brush again. Look at your reference photo.
You can see where they are. There's a little dark line
over the top, isn't it? And then the lashes
start going gently. I think that's probably enough. That's probably enough. Also,
it's not clearly evident, but I found it useful to put in, there's a white line that
runs underneath the eye. I can actually make the
brush hit the paper. It's going to be
a bit of silence while I concentrate on this one. I think I've got it right. Yeah, I think that's there now. I can allow that to dry for a minute and I'm going to
take a little bit of color. Might have gone a little bit
high with that white line, so I can just put a
little bit of color in if you've made your line. I'll show you in a minute.
Let's try this first. I was just saying
that's gone a little high or you may have got
your line a little thick. You can then very
gently with Pia. Nice small brush,
quite nice and creamy. You can then close
that white line down, so you're going into
the white line and making it smaller.
That makes sense. If you did the B
is similar to the. If we did the, just making that white line
a little bit smaller, I could have done a tiny still. Not quite right that hi quite say we need a little bit
too light at the top there. Just adding a tiny little bit of paint and
squeezing my finger, probably being a bit
risky doing that, right? The final little party is
just to take the color out. You can say I've already left a little bit
of light there, but it's quite nice to take
a little bit more out. We're just simply going
back and forth and wiping, squeezy your fingers. Take that out. Hopefully you've got something you're
pleased with. Lovely. Now, I might just
off camera when I'm, I can get a little
bit closer to it. I might just see if it looks
a little bit different. I haven't told you anything. I won't do anything, I
haven't told you about it. Just I can get a little bit
closer to eating that up. So Yeah, that's you, I done.
11. Finishing Off: Right. Then we onto the
home straight as they say. There's quite a lot of what
I call finishing off bits. And this is a really lovely
stage because there's just little tinkers and it
makes all the difference. I think first we'll do be make sure this
is lovely and dry. Is to rub any pencil marks out. I think I need to treat
myself to a new rubber. Yeah, I say make
sure they're nice and everything's
nice and dry and we're going to rub
those pencil marks out, especially around the
forehead and things. It makes a big difference. I would probably just keep the only pencil
mark I would leave, maybe that back legs. Just to give you a
guide where it is, it's actually to many
probably keep the nostril in nets as well, Duffy. Okay. I shall try
to be methodical. And I'm going to start off, the top of the ear obviously
looks a little harsh, and we need to put in the sort of when the ear lobe goes in and there's a
darker area there, isn't it? I'm not going to try
and get to carried. There's obviously lots
of fur there and flicks. We're I'm not going to get
too carried away with that. Just an impression,
so this donkeys ever I like to keep him
loving and stft her, sorry. So, I don't want to strike, trying to put lots of
little bits of detail in, it all gets a little bit. You lose that nice sort of
spontaneity and it gets, it's very easy to add detail, but it doesn't necessarily
get you anywhere. I don't think that's
all you have to do. Sorry. I picked up the
sepia and just tap. I'm glancing out of
my studio window because Tuesday is mowing day around here on
the estate and I was just seeing where she
was off to with a mower. I think she's gone
somewhere else. Is it picks up on the audio? Lovely. All right. That's the inside
of the ear done. You really don't need to
do it any more than that. Again, I'm not doing any
of the sort of flicks, the fluff on that very
first layer we did. I'm happy with that back ear. I don't want to say anymore. I think we should put
the man in because that's quite a fun thing to do. So I'm going to pick up the
mummy boxter boxes and sepia. We're going to put a
lovely strong line right on top, both
paints together. Get your brush in,
your brush again, take the excess and wish off. And we're just going to
flick up, so we're going to use all that lovely
paint we've just put down, just flick. You can change
brushes if you want to to get some
different texture, you can add paint in if it doesn't feel like you
haven't got quite enough, give out a bit of a
rustle, Change direction, swap brushes change
direction as well. Goes a bit higher, doesn't it? Doesn't have to be
the exact match to the reference photo. Doesn't really matter on that. On the main. Exactly the same, Right enough, Jane.
That's enough. All these little things, it's just they're too
satisfying, aren't they? All right, and the while we were there
with the same colors, just a tiny t. You can't
almost see it, can you? But it's just a tiny little
bit and I'll probably used to the mummy book site just a hint just so she doesn't look like she
hasn't got anything enough. Yeah, that's enough. Say,
take your brush away, have a look, see what you think. And add if necessary. All right. Let's put those colors
down, out of order. Okay? So we've done that. We just need to, if there's
any light you feel a little, let's take some light
out, 'cause that's always quite a
satisfying thing to do. Actually, I should have changed my kitchen roll
'cause that's great. You're trying to
take light out and you've got a dirty
pie of kitchen roll. Put that down there. Now, I always like to
take little bits out, particularly on some parts that join your paper or the outside. I have to explain
it just like that. You're almost allowing the light in. I don't know what it is. It's just you're taking that
line, that water line out. Hopefully you didn't put
a very strong pencil mark in there and it
almost disappears. Now, there's a line just here
again, usual soft brush. I haven't got my
eradicated brush today. So if you join me
the first time, I have a little brush that
paint out quite well, but it's almost a bit
too good for this. Everything needs to be
kept quite nice and soft. Now, in this little donkey, there's a little, I don't know if it's coat or it's
light, but it actually, it's quite nice to take out
using the same paints as me, You can see how easily
are to come out. So that's probably enough
work my way round. I'm happy with this, but if
there's anything you've left, say this, you could add
a little bit of light. So you take a little
bit of paint out. We need to do the back leg, but let's not worry
about that at the moment. This is all nice. Again, if you felt
you've got a little heavy with the
paint at any place, you can just scrub
some of that out. Okay. There. I'm happy
with the rest of it. There isn't a lot of
light I want to take out, but we will do this nostril. So you can see, I know we
haven't painted it in yet, but it's quite nice
to take this light out before we put the nostril. And you can see it
flares out, doesn't it? A little bit that out
of the kitchen roll, you see that starting to
appear probably enough. Again, managed to again, when we're doing these,
the second layer, when we were just
concentrating on putting the paint down
where we saw the dark, in theory, you would
have been left with a lighter area
underneath this eye. If again, you can just take
a little bit of paint out, see there's a light area
under and there'll be a lighter area over the top
where the eyebrow again, just very gently tap that out. Use your fingers. Told
you I was random. I've now gone up to
the top, against a couple of little lines here. On top of the ear is near
where it's creased again. You can see when you
take the brush away, you really see just
taking little bits of light out makes
such a difference. You can also take little
bits of light out. If your mane is starting to dry a little fix of light
out with a brush, he gives you a little
bit of relief. Yeah, I think we're there. Let's work our way round.
Let's do that leg because she looks a bit old
now without a leg. So all I'm going to do
is wet the very top. And a little way down, I got a nice splodge, you that background
color underneath there. But it doesn't matter
how I'm going to pick up the Josh Gray and literally
just tap along the very, very top might and the hematite on top
of it, pull it down. I'm just going to just
pull that down again, just off on that edge as well. That's enough. That's
enough for that back leg. I don't really want to
make it too obvious, just just so the eye can see
that she has another leg. Okay, let's put that
big brush down. Let's do the nostril,
because that seems to be glaringly obvious. It's not there now. So
I've got the Joseph Gray. And I'm going to be
careful not to put my And in and we're just painting feels strange
just to paint. Hopefully you can see a pencil
marks underneath thing, just about make
out that nostril. If not, then you
have a good look at that reference photo. We see where it is just
softening the edges again. I'm just allowing that to soften a little bit so
it's not too stark. Should in theory be a little
bit dark at the top where the shadow would be a
light at the bottom, a bit of water. Take
the excess moisture of just softening some of
those edges so that it doesn't become too stark. And like you have
actually just painted it straight on because it
can look a little bit stuck. Yeah, that looks quite
pretty that's forming also. We did start to put a little bit of dark
in here, didn't we? We're just going to add a
little line there again, just soften the back
edge of that line, gently forming that
nostril flare. I mean, just gently,
sort of just tinker outward, soften your finger. What you want to avoid is
sort of water lines, wave. You've really wet down A little bit more strength. Take brush away. See
if you think so. I think that's
looking all right. Now what we will do now, I'm just going to
put a tiny line. You can see whether you make it look sort
like so quickly. You can see where the use
of the mouth goes in. So I'm just going to same
slitle thing as a nostril. Doing a little line and
then softening underneath it just so we get away from having putting
a big smile on her face. Take you brush away, see what you think.
Reshape if necessary. Just going back
to my tiny brush, just give it a little bit of more shape there. That's better. Sometimes it is the
most tiny little thing, you make a little
alteration and it can make all the difference just keeping an eye on
this water mark. Some of these paints
are all very well being incredibly soft
and easy to take out. But sorry, I'm just
trying to concentrate. They can leave you,
they can come off, they can be lifted
out too easily. Sometimes, I'm just trying to find that nostril
flare back in again. Sometimes just a bit
of give and take, a little bit in a
little bit out. Say we're all going to
be at different stages, so be mindful of how
your piece is looking. Okay, I'm just having
a little look. I think that's sticking. All right. Now there's a, quite often, a little,
there's a line. So I might just try very gently soften that line just where
the paints from the body and from the face
is sort of gone up against the dry paper to see if I can get
some of that out. You don't have to take it
all out just a little bit and see how that just
releases it somehow. Stops up just enough? Yeah. Be careful, don't
take too much out. How is she looking? Just have a glance over your own
painting. See what you think. It's quite useful to
step away if you've been painting this whole
duration of this class, you can almost look
at her for too long. And you don't see your own little things that
need altering. It can be useful to step away for a couple
of hours and come back. I always say that, but it's such a useful technique to look at it with a
fresh pair of eyes. I'm liking what I've got here. I don't think there's
anything else I really want to tinker with. There's nothing that
I needed to tell you that's useful process to
building it up. We're there. I've done all the
little finishing off pieces that need doing. Now, if you come back in a couple of hours and look at your piece and think
Steph needs altering, then do be guided
by how your piece looks and how it's looking. I'm trying to think there's the eye make up sometimes
that can be sculpted very gently if it hasn't
got quite the right shape because a lot of the
interest is around the eye, that's worth getting
right again, it can be The little thing you do will really make
all the difference. If I come back to this
in a couple of hours and find the stuff on this
particular piece, I feel would be useful for you to know about that I've
altered or tinkered with. Then I will record another, a little lesson and
just go through that. But I'm honest, I've been painting obviously for the whole
duration of the time. If I look at her, I'm
pleased with her. I think there's something that needs a little bit altering. I'm just not sure what I need to step away and I'm
going to have a cup of tea. Yeah, if your piece,
for your piece, do another lesson, then. I really hope you
enjoyed painting her. Because I've loved her. I think she's such
a sweet character. Please do post your work on the projects and
resources pages. If you get a chance
to leave any reviews. I love to read your
reviews good or bad, or any hints you think would be improved or I
can help you with. Please to shout and get
in contact with me. Yeah. Thank you very much.
12. When Things Go Wrong: Now I was quite happy
with my little donkey. I did a couple of little bits. I probably filled in the nostril a little bit more once
I was off camera. Then I managed to drop a great, big triplet droplet
of water just here. Because these colors are so wonderfully granulating
and delicate, they also lift out
particularly well. I was left with a big
patch of white paper, which I then tried to fill in. And you can see that hasn't
worked very well either. I thought, okay, this
maybe is an opportunity to do another lesson for you. I'm going to try a little
bit of an experiment and something I do not dissimilar
to some of my commissions. I am going to wet the
entire donkey down again. And we're going to,
because we section, we've sectioned off
quite a few areas you can get left with. It can end up looking
a little choppy. I'm quite happy if
I'm honest with it, but I can see some little bits I could add a little bit more strength to. This. Might be just for
you to have a watch, and maybe you'll pick
something up, maybe you won't. Maybe it'll be a complete
disaster. But let's have a go. I'm going to pick
my big brush up whenever you're adding a layer. And especially as you
start adding more layers, you need to wet
down really gently. You need to let the
brush just fall on the paper and be very careful. Because again, these paints, they are deliciously beautiful, but they do also lift
off particularly well. And that's how I've
ended up with that, a little bit of a disaster. The only but I'm going to go and wet down is the
eye. I like the eye. If I start wetting
that down as well, I'm going to do
going to go around the eye ball just like
we did before already, but the eye is really nice. I don't want to disturb that
again with the nostril. Actually, I might just
go around that nostril. See, I'm making this
up as I go along. I'm going to wet over here, I'm going to go up to
that line when we wet the body down, very gentle. The only trouble because we've
done some of these flicks, I've done some of these flicks, there's a chance they can
look a little stuck on, so we have to address that
as we go along and add some more flicks
because if I explain, if I wet up to that line, you can see then the flick, you'll get left the little
watermark and the flicks will look like the disjointed. Now see the joys with
adding more layers. Fine, that's not
really moving much. That's quite a heavy
amount of paint there, yet it's barely bled in. It's a lovely way to
paint and say most of my commissions will end up
with four or five layers, perhaps, depending on how
dark the animals save. At Labrador, which I get
to paint quite a lot, especially black
Labradors, I can often end up with
five or 67 layers, just slowly, just like the
donkey slowly building up the darker areas and
leaving the light to work itself out on
its own as it were. Because if you only concentrate on popping on the dark bits, it will gently bleed
and leave you, in theory, with the white left. I'm trying to be as
gentle as I can. Just taking a little
longer and being able to just with my brush over. Yes, I'm taking my time. I was trying to say if it was a nice clean piece of paper, I could just do
this very quickly, but I'm trying not to
disturb that paint. That's a bit of dibblingI
might end up with a little bit too
much water because I'm having to be very gentle. I'm adding more water
than I probably need. I won't go into a little bit of main because
that's worked well. If I start doing that, that will get very messy quite quickly. Same applies when I
explain flicks down there. I'm actually going to miss
out that back leg actually. Apart from that, everything
else is wet down. Okay. Now, if I
wanted to get rid of just that little splodge
you can see now that softened and if I just
stopped and did nothing else, I've corrected that
little error there. That little mark where
the water droplet ended up and lifted the paint. Say just simply by
wetting all down again, you can sometimes correct marks and not be left
with little water marks, but I'm going to have
one of them here. I'm going to have another
little tinker and add a little bit more
color and might be useful for you to see, it might gain some
snippet of information. Okay. Right. I'm really conscious
it is really wet now. So I'm just going to allow
this to dry a little bit and I don't know if
you can make that out in the camera. Probably not. It's really wet, it's
almost puddling. If I start adding paint now, it's just going to sit on top. I'm going to hang fire for 5
minutes and just allow that to dry a little bit and I will try to be
patient and not fiddle. Okay, I can see the body is just about there,
A nice stage. Now, I'm picking up
my number ten brush. Really need to add
a huge amount. But I will do because in the spirit of showing you
how I add more layers, really I should and you can see how it reacts and
adds color and depth. I'm just tapping. She says
paint actually comes out. This is the hematite violet. It's such a soft
color, very beautiful, but terribly so You can see it's not really
moving that much. That's a trick with getting more layers in there is you'll find your
paint doesn't move. Then you can see
how you can start adding more delicate structures. And the bone structure in there, you can see how little that's moving but
it's still sing soft. That's how you end up
building up the depth and structure a little bit
down here with the Joseph. Just add a little bit more. A little more something Again, I'm just squinting my eyes. Just adding a little bit
more strength in areas. Just building up a little bit. Pop, pop a little bit more, Joseph. Just down there, blending out a little bit. Just very, very,
just gentle little dabbles and dabbles
all very gentle. Add a little bit, I'll
just duck in my head. If you duck your
head up and down, you probably heard
me say 1,000 times. If you follow me here on
some of my other classes, you can see where
that dark area is. Sorry. You can see if
there's any where how wet your paper is and if
there's any dry spots. Okay. Let's let's
just add a bit of a Mama Baxter pork
site in there. A little bit up the back. Take my brush away. Have
a look. See what I think. I think what I like if
I need something else. Let's, let's have a little
bit of the raw umber, let's pop that down again a little bit like the hematite
is a very soft color. Pick up the Joseph again, I still want to try and keep
that idea that those lines, because it gives that neck that cress just a little
back here again, steal a little bit
more strength there. Taking my brush
away and we look, it's easy to keep adding color, but yeah, I think that
looks quite nice. It's titanium. The
great titanium. So just tap a little
bit more in there. Again, I'm just constantly looking back at that
reference photo. Squinting my eyes
and seeing and just trusting my instincts. It will. The best you can do, really, is to just trust what you see. Trust where you think you
need to put something. Yeah, that's looking
nice, right. I just need to be a
little bit my fault. I don't want a watermark. If that dries, you can see it's going to be a
really solid line there. So I'm just going
to pull that out. Again, like we did
with when we did, that first layer could have
done on my larger brush, but I've hidden
it somewhere now. Pull out a little
bit of my finger. Okay. Just back to
looking over the head really and seeing what I
need, what I feel I need. Let's put back down again. Let's pick up the Joseph and let's tap a little
bit of color in here. Put that titanium. Great titanium is larva
over the top of that. It really pushes that color
out and it's perfect. Donkey colors just picked up the A baxter and
a little bit warmer. There's a little bit
more warmth over here. There's a lot of that umber there almost got a
little bit too greeny. Going to squinting my eyes, tried to trust my instinct
to have a little bit blue. Just want a little
bit blue there. I'd love to tell you why I
just picked up the blue. I have no idea really. Just
just the color I wanted. As I say, right or wrong, I think that's what makes
your per your painting. It's how you interpret the
colors and how you see things. So don't be afraid just because maybe that
color is not there. Or somebody said to you about something you
shouldn't do, X, Y, z. Just play to see
how it all evolves. One thing might turn
out really badly, but you will have, excuse me, learned from that experience. Okay, again, just trying to get that little bit of darkness
over the top of the eye. She's got a little
bit lower at she, let's just take that back out. This is really puddling here. I've got a bit of a dip where the paper hasn't
stretched as well. Now let's put a little bit of strength in here and you can see a really strong
bit of paint. Now, had I done that on
that very first layer, that gray would have probably
bloomed right out to here. Because we're working
on several layers now. It's just staying almost to
the point that's too much. But hopefully get it how dark you can make that and how
little that paint is. Moving into the other areas? Yeah. Way too dark, too much. Trying to lift that
back out again. Lucky sir, wearing a nose
bag or something odd. Do you see that's crept
out a little bit there. So I just know if it
starts to creep out, I can just stuck
it back up again. There's always a risk, of
course, the more lays you do, the more you fiddle, the
worse it can get better. It's just constantly
taking your eye, lifting your brush, and looking. If you're sitting, just
stand up for a minute, just get above it, have a look. Because you can get so engrossed
in tiny little details, you don't almost see
the overall picture. That's probably where that
saying comes from, isn't it? If you can see that it's
really puddly here. So I'm just trying to suck
up some of that puddle very gently, very wet here. But if I'm not very careful, I will just be
lifting paint out. Because like I say, it lifts out ever so easily. Just make sure that
doesn't bleed in. That's not really moving
very much at all. Yeah, it's just going a
little bit heavy almost. I kind of wanted to show
you by even putting a large amount of paint on
there in a very dark color, how little that actually moves. Let's just put those down again. I'm going to grab gray. And I've got the
hematite violet, just like a little bit more. Just something on
the front here, front of the nose,
something very soft. You can see underneath
that head collar, there's a little
line going round, just softening a
bit above the eye. Again, it's quite
light there, isn't it? Right on the front of her, I'm not sure what that would be. Again, just keeping my eye
on other bits as I work my way round just to make sure that don't just
to keep the light. Because obviously if we
were everything down, it all just gently blends in. So you have to
just be mindful of the light and just keep
that reserve nicely. It does sometimes
mean just going around with your brush
and sucking some of that paint up just to stop it
going into the light areas. Yes, she's looking
quite sweet actually. It's nice more. Um, when my box right there,
I quite like the ear. I really don't want to
touch that particularly. I might do a few flicks
actually while I'm here just to make sure they don't
look too stuck song. Just go over those again
very gently again. Any that's a couple on the
back here on the neck. Make sure that water's well. I've actually re wet it. Got it in the same place. Is it worth I'm just
going round and make sure I haven't wet up to here. And then left a dry patch. Then you get left with a
funny little mark there. It's easy can see. Now I'm going to go to put
we're getting out of all here, let's grab that sepia. Just want to strengthen
that eye make up again again because
we've wet it down. Lola that's blended and
bleed softened away. I just want to re
strengthen that up again. That's a nice part of her. I think I can add
a little bit of just a little bit
more darkness there. A little tiny little
flick up there. Isn't there any detail
around the eye is really important to get right because it's what your eye
is always drawn to. A little more strength there, trying to say, I've got that little white line there
which is really nice. I've got that just in
the right position, so I don't want to go over that again to have to then
put it back in again. Yeah, take brush away and
have a little look again. I can sculpt, just take it
away again if I need to. Just sculpt that up in there. Give that knife that will
look touch more. All right. At the very front. Yeah. Now I'm going to just wet that nostril. We haven't actually wet it down. I actually went round it. I'm actually going
to wet it down. Just add a little bit
more strength at the top. I'm just going to go around
that nostril flares out. There's a shadow under
where it's fled. I'm just going to
pop that back in. Let's pick up Joseph Warm now. There is always at this stage, I really enjoy
this stage because I just putting the last
little bits in Again, just like the
finishing off bits, it's very easy to overdo
it and keep fiddling. It's exactly, it's
very easy to muddy. So it's knowing when to stop isn't it's always
the biggest thing, especially when
you're enjoying it. I can still make out that little blow if I'm on it and where I put
that paint down. So I'm just going to give it
a little bit of a rustle. So if I can just push that
out, it was my mistake. I shouldn't try to patch it up. I should've known better that that was never going to work. Put, put more color in there
so we can diffuse it a bit. Still see that line down
there that's vanishing on me. So it's a little, quite a
strong line going down. Trying to keep
that we draw line. This line up here, It's
not a draw tall, is it? Jane's? A little bit the strong. Again, probably can't
quite make it on a camera. This is starting to draw me now. If I start adding too much paint on this little part here, it's not a good time. I think the more you
paint like this there, you'll make a few areas and go, yeah, that wasn't right, that was the wrong
time to do it. You slowly build up
your knowledge, really. Fortunately, like most things, there's never a shortcut is it's time spent doing these
things and observing. I can pull out any light that may have got lost a little
bit by rewetting. I want to try and keep this
a little more defined. Just take a bit
of color out just to give that definition
between the two. Don't want to go into area,
this is really puddly. I think I'm going to leave it
at that and see how we go. Hopefully this has
been interesting. You probably hopefully
just, probably just watch, because yours won't be anything
like mine at this stage. But if you do want to re, and have a play, then it's
worth the experiment. Or maybe you could paint two of these donkeys and go, okay, one's going to be my main piece, the other one I'm just
going to have a play with. I'm going to do
those three layers and see how that feels. Sometimes if you
get one painting you're really pleased with,
you have the confidence. Then if you redo it again because you've already
got a really lovely one, you feel a little
freer, you feel like I've gotten my good one. I can just simply play with
this one. No pressure. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I hope this is giving you a little insight into
probably how I go about, let's say, slowly
building up my portraits. If this was actually
a commission piece, I would have to see
actually when it finally dries where I'd
add another layer. But if I did, I wouldn't re
wet the whole painting down. I would probably just re wet the head because
that's the main part. If I felt there was any other tinkering
that needed doing, I would just work on that. Not on the body, but every
painting is different. Every subject
slightly different. Right before I just waffle
away and bore you to tears. I'm going to end it there. Yes, I hope this has been
insightful in some way.
13. Final Thoughts: I hope you enjoyed
this class and you picked up a few
tips along the way. Did you decide to add that colorful
background If you did, I hope you enjoyed the
spontaneity of it. Did you find concentrating on the darker areas left you
with something wonderful? It's a lovely technique to
keeping your work fresh. What about the eye?
Remember to take your time. Don't panic. And if
it gets muddled, give yourself five or 10
minutes away from it. As I always say, it's worth stepping away and
coming back and looking at your painting
with a fresh pair of eyes and tweak if necessary. So we look forward to seeing
you in the next class.
Jane Davies, Professional Artist and Teacher
