Easy and Fun Watercolour Dogs and other Critters

1. Introduction: welcome to my mini workshop painting watery dogs and animals. I designed this course to invite you to really engage with a sense of play around using watercolor and to discover with me how easy it is to let random ideas just fall out of your subconscious and into paint. You don't even need your little animals to be perfect, which is perfect. In fact, the more cookie they are, in my view, the better and the more enjoyable they are for us to look at. I love hell. These little characters just evolved out of nothing and slowly you see them come to life on the paper within seconds, or you've gotta do is director imagination a little bit within the container of a subject. In this case, we're choosing loose doggies. So as usual with my courses, we have fun, but I Sprinkle it with. But you'd probably call more formal learning That's kind of laced into it in a casual way. So it doesn't hurt much. So all through it, I dropped tips on you know how to handle the paint in the paper and the shapes and and all that kind of stuff You could apply this same method to any other animal. It doesn't have to just be dogs and could be little cats or whatever your favorite animal is. The idea is that it improves your powers of observation. You might feel inclined to start taking more notice and making more quick pin or watercolor sketches of your own pits as they're blogging around the place or just use photos. You can later translate them onto your little paintings, so take loads of photos of them doing funny things and in different positions. I really love doing these little critters because they don't need much space. You know you can do it on the kitchen bench, and I've got a ton of them in my sketchbooks. Speaking of credits, we also play with critters, and it brings back those wonderful memories of blowing paint through straws. We don't do that towards the end. We could just open up our gates of imagination and let the little monsters arrive as at their will. Along the way, I also show you some really quick exercises to strengthen up your observation muscles in a number of timed watercolor sketches. It's like a little competition that's designed to make you work faster and with less fuss watercolors the perfect medium for doing that because it's flowing. I will also take you through several exercises when you can paint your chosen animal, you know, from a photo in a little bit more lifelike rendition for those that want that more towards perfection. And guess what? It's really easy and again a lot only take you a couple of minutes instead of hours. I want you to enjoy these exercises, and I believe he will find that gateways open up your own creative expressions in all sorts of ways. Once you get comfortable with using this method, remember, if you want to, by all means post some of your results or even attempts at the at the bottom of the lessons . Nothing gives me more joy than seeing your unique creativity evolving out of what I've shown you. It absolutely thrills me seriously. I actually get quite excited and even a little bit teary, so let's get going and see what we can create 2. Materials: way Here is my little array of paints. You could use all of them. You could use different colors. What I'm going for is toe have a kind of a color family and thes Airil earthy colors. I'll put the info sheeting with all these color names listed. Permanent white sepia Van dyke, brown burnt Sienna, Natural India, Red raw sienna That's the deep That's the same one Raw umber red gold and I actually did add in a light. So the Rossi had a Hugh, which is a more inferior color, but it actually is a nice light Sienna. So let's just get rid of that one, which was all dried out. So he we've got a little pellet. I've just got a little GP, but a flight palette that you can get from an out store. It's just usually about $5 the paint, so I'm using. Pouring them into the same him are various ones. Sometimes I use a combination of watercolors and wash for these little during so paintings . Um, my main brand that I use being in Australia is out of spectrum, but any of the Windsor and Newton or other good brands are just fine. This one is a Windsor and Newton Gua sha white gouache which were used for just a little tiny highlights in their eyes. But the rest of this, the only other quashes the van dyke brown. So these are all really earthy colors. As you can see, you could use blues and pinks if you want. If you want those little colorful animals, I'm just going to use the earthy colors for this particular scene. So while I don't with this is I put a little dob try and stick with the color that you know , the grade of the color. So that's the natural Sienna. And I only won a Tony but s a P s o just move around to that spot and block just a little book and a fleet guard. You know what? I'm not gonna put my white out yet because it'll dry quite quickly. Now we'll get just to spray, and I like to just give it up a little light spray over the top just to keep things wet. You might like it to dry up a bit and then you can get a lighter wash with it. But if I keep it damp. Then I can get a much more intense color because you can pull up all the pigment in the color and not just sort of be watering it down with the water toe. You know, scrubbing it to be able to lift the the pigment that's up hell, it all set up. Let's move on to the next step. As for brushes, I have just a little assortment here of various watercolor wash brushes there, just acrylic. Gosh, they have been so used that you can't read the label. This one's a West start. Number 10. Just a 2 to 20 Siri's. There are synthetic brush. Look any watercolor brush would do. I've got some smaller ones here. This has actually got a pretty good point, so that's going to be just fine when it comes to doing the detail. That's not sopa small, but it's good enough for what we're doing. It's not like we're working on painting the dogs or the animals values, and it's got a little point, which weaken used for the eyes. But if you're more comfortable with a smaller one, go for it. Mostly, I use Westar brushes just whatever you've got there, but it's handy to have a couple with points on them. All right, let's move on to the next thing. 3. Lots of Little Dogs: way, we're just going to jump in. It's always a bit nerve wrecking to start. Just loosen up that paint with plenty of water because I need paddles to get started, and that's a good idea. If you're feeling a little nervous, just make yourself a nice, sloppy paddle and it's just a lot less paint going on and you just feel like you're doing it nice and light. So this is I actually got that light Sienna. So here we go. Let's get some doggies on the page. Just do a few blobs, a little gestures. I hope that looks weird. I don't even know what that is, but I'll leave it. I am actually now just free handing stuff and hoping that it's going to turn out. So I'm totally winging it here, guys, totally winning it. Consider, See, you know as you going, you'll see things, but we're gonna come back to that. Um, let me think. Just do something. Lying down a dog lying down perhaps, um, preps will change colors into the gold. If you can see this is a mindless, brain free exercise. What? I mean, what is that? I got no all idea And maybe we just put one more down here, So Oh, so make a movement like that. Now what am I gonna do with all this? So now I'm gonna look at the colors and prep soul, change up my colors a bit my brush and maybe I'll go in with a bit of the think That's the redish. I think that it's either the burnt Sienna or the Indian red. So as you can see, it's lovely. When the paint just goes boom and starts to spread. Let this happen the way that let the paint pool. So because that's still wet, it's perfect. Take up just the take up that pint leave. Let it do its thing creates lovely shadows. It's going to a different color and all. I'm thinking that perhaps, you know, the shadow might be down the bottom. This looks like some sort of big brown dog. Maybe it's George in order, spins it out, and I'm just wiping off my brush a little bit and let the light shine on the top. This may be brush around, perhaps will record tail on there, just so we kind of know what's going on. Just with watercolor. Just load your brush up again. If you feel that it's just getting a bit dry that again. This is just gesture. So how about we just leave him right there? That's will a couple of years on just for nail. I don't know what that's turning out to be. Maybe I'll come back to that one. Try and keep going till something emerges. Pepsi's sitting. They're looking into a hole in the ground, a little more like a rat, and maybe is maybe he's a big wreck. We'll just try and keep him as a dog for now because one of the things you do is if you're thinking dog, think dog slaving it, but because it actually gives you a little bit of a boundary toe working with your mind. Your imagination loves boundaries. Sometimes dogs put their legs on the other side, so just putting a little bit of you can while the paint is which you could just plop in a little bit of darkness underneath there. And maybe I'll just God, I can probably shadow into that one, and some of these might not work out, and then that's just fine. Or if you see another creature. Great. That's good too. This looks to me more like a cat. And this looks like some sort of cookie giraffe dog. Just see what I can do with it. Preps are leaving like a little cartoon dog. He looks kind of cute. No, just making a little cartoon dog with it. I There we go. He's gonna He's got a big, fluffy tail. And in actual fact, I might have toe do a bit more with him when I get my white paint out. All right? So I'm just gonna leave him like that of wanting to be a bit weird. Now, I have no idea what is going on here, but I guess I'm just gonna have to dive in. I wonder if you can see anything. I certainly can't. It's looking very weak, like I will have a go. It's something. If I had just trying to trigger myself into some ideas by putting dots and things, they're all look, I think I'll just do this. Oh, if I go and that that's like that, a little puppy, this little puppy. And this is the money. The more you do of thes the better you will get you just find it starts to really make sense out of the nonsense. So I think this whole workshop or lesson here on these watercolor processes to get you to just feel more comfortable using watercolor, I have no idea what's can happen with this little one. Let me think. Um, okay, let me do this thing again. Where I I pretend that it's got a face to try and work out. All right, I'm going to just go with that idea. Let me see. So let's make it a some sort of fuzzy little face dog. It's got little whiskers and then we'll we'll have him standing there about that, take their egos, and I don't know what's happened here. But perhaps he's got a little very body there, and these little foot is there and he's doing something. I don't know what. Okay, let's just put that are in the come back into his face properly. In a minute. Now, somebody out there will love him. Someone will take ownership. I'm just going over his face for their with all his strangeness. Don't worry. He'll he will come back preps your heavies of a little foot. Okay, so that's already got something that will put some in the If they were, just drop a bit of shadow and just gives a little bit more three dimensionality about it. You know what? I kind of like the idea that he has stripes. Like Tasmanian Tigers only. Oh, yeah, that's good. Do you like that? Okay. I can't wait to do these two, All right? I'm gonna let those drive for a bit now, and then I'm gonna come back and weaken muck around with the day tiles if you're in a big hurry. This is your best friend. I'm going to use this little brush, which is not really super fine, as you can see. But it's fine enough for me. And I'm also going to have to put a little bit of white crash into my palate because it's a nice I pay quite a little bit of that near, and that should do it. All right, here we go. This is the fun part. And I can also add any other cookie details. So let's go and work up here first in order. So this little guy here, let's stop using my Tony brush I don't want it to be too runny. I just do a little pineau myself. It's quite pigment E. It's quite strong, but it's not pulling. So if it was all paddling, we might be in trouble. So let's just get a little bit of that there. We'll just move the paper around so you can see up close. So I'm just gonna back a couple of little funny eyes, a little bit of a nose. Perhaps that would be about their niece. Noise would be there. Perhaps we have a little melt and let's keep going. Just sort of use your imagination a bit. One way to put those little parts. No, this will go here. Sad goi. He looks, What sort of a break he looks like. Now, this is a really strange one. So let's just have a little bit of fun. Make it some so little fuzzy critter. No, this one. I had no idea. So let's just be silly with it. If that is your dog, I'm really sorry. He doesn't look right, but don't worry. Actually, he probably has these big years like that, but we'll come back to that. I think the idea is to just keep yourself moving. You don't get too serious. I keep saying that during tie that looks like a ratty rat with little paws. And if you want to put a little few pools in there, you can. This guy was quite obvious. He looks like he needs a little jaw. Come back and do that with some lighter paint. Now it's a little testy Tiger dog. She Hey, my paint. It's just amazing how they just come to life with eyes. Say the window of the soul is the eyes and I really do believe it. And this one looks like he's just looking at us. And if you had his head raised, they would be closer to these nice way We might just put some little toys on him way, Okay, we could do more details, or we could just leave it at that and then move on to the whites of their eyes. So I'm going to take that little same little tiny brush again and just dip it in that white wash. And again, you've just got a little bit of an art to this. So as you can see, I'm twisting, I'm turning and twisting the brush. I don't want it to be too sloppy, because otherwise it'll drip the white onto the page, so it's wet. But it's not too wet, just so small. You've just got to really control yourself here. And in this case we do have to be precise, because if it's too big, just as you can see, even with that one, it just looks a little bit too stupid. So I can actually come back and fix that up by just putting a bit of black in win. It's. 4. Enlarge One Simple Dog: so I just want to choose one. I might just choose this little guy here. He's got a nice, simple doggy shape, and I'll just use a bigger brush and on one page or fitting in here, and you can see the process up a little bit more closely. Just in case you're feeling a little bit anxious about painting the dogs. This is the best way is to do one. Now. The only problem with this when you do a large picture of any sort, if someone's, we think we need to be mawr careful and after all this more room for detail. So just try and put that out of your head by using. That's not a super large brush, but it's larger than the other one we were using. So I think it's about a number 10 or 12. Uh, what color brush? Just Actually, it's acrylic, so let's get going. I'm going to use my pellet that I already have mixed. I do need quite a bit of water in this sienna color, too, have enough to Philip his body, so I'll probably just square to be or in there and a freak just following the shape imagined shape. And these are just playful cartoon type dogs, so they don't have to be perfect. That'll do for now, just not quite right. I think he's chest would come around like that, right? So that's just a very loose shape. Just pop a couple of years. And Leah, more doggy like a joke. They're probably a bit too sharp, and they look more like it. But like I said, there's our pointy eared dog now while he's still wet and it's just a very light wash, we need to. Well, I'd like to darken up his, um, shadows with a little bit off a darker mixture, and now I'm just going to use a bit of Sienna, which is on my palette already. It's actually the buoyancy, and I'm not just gonna puddle that into the bottom like I don't want it to be so wet that it just runs all over the place because I am targeting it as if it's a shadow in him. So put a bid on Reese changes. If he's standing in the sun, maybe just a bit there, and I just kind of like the watery look of it just might use my tissue again. Toe. Take some of that off because it's starting to flood too much. It's all about just a just so balance of paint and water on your brush. And that does take a little bit of getting used to when you're doing watercolor publishing and washing. And you know, when you're filling in and letting the paint do its own thing, that's, you know, it looks easy, but it can be a little bit tricky. So again, the whole idea is to play without my king. Too much judgment about what you doing. And right here at any point I could be saying, Oh, no, I've lost the painting but it's all right It's not perfect. Okay? So this week I will just leave him a bit sort of motley, and I think that we knew with watercolor, you get a really nice natural feeling by using these this wash technique. It just gives it a lovely as when it's waiting wet. It just sort of blends and, you know, mixes together a little bit. And if you're you could be using other colors. Okay, so I'm just thinking about here how his forehead not becoming up here and sometimes they have a I don't know where Wearies faces Children at this moment, but I'm just pulling that some of the paint or the water more so out. Okay, here we go. He's looking good. I'd probably now I want to dry him off with the hairdryer and I'll do that. And then we can actually put some details. But as you can see, that like took me about two or three minutes. You could do this really easily. Let's do a few more. We've dried him now and I'm now going to use they dark. The dark color, the darkest color ahead is sepia snow black. But I'm just going to do that really simple. I think. Now he's noise in his eyes. So maybe I've got the always sort of about there. Maybe just a bit there and hope of got it right. And then poppies. Nice on. Look right. And then, perhaps because this forts probably in front just a little detail like that and that one's Thea other behind, so we won't go to too much detail again. Just hit it with the dryer so we can put the white highlights. I have to be really careful to just not pick up too much water. There's a fibula water there, so I'm tipping it away. I just want to make sure we only got a little bit of paint on the end off the brush. Sorry, let's have a try at putting these little dots in. Yep, for two months. Don't do too much. Just a little. Don't. You might want to have a little practice on another area, just sort of spare bit of paper at just putting that tiny little book because it can actually really easily get out of control. So there he is. He's done. That's just a simple one dog picture, and he looks cute and gorgeous. And to be honest, I felt like I lost him a few times. But that's how it goes. And even if your little creature looks crazy, he's still good. You made him. You invented him. You brought him to life. He wasn't there before her 5. A Character Dog from a Photo: So what I've got here are just some printed out photos of some of the dogs from my workshop participants who painted these animals in the pictures. And I've just printed out a stack of them so I can give you just a little bit of an example about how toe work from a photo. In this way, we're not going to be painting perfect Portrait's. It's all about being relaxed and loose and creating a character. It's not like the perfect dog painting. It's about capturing their essence and their movement. You can see these lovely basic shapes. Look at this gorgeous, curly, curly Wehrli tail. Are I just, you know, my curly tree feelings of just going nuts here. And what about this little dude? Look at this shape. If you actually look at that shape off that little poochie woochi, Look it. Look at it. It's just a funny shape. If you don't think about the dog, another one just a really like a big sausage and then a big bled bully head here. Andi, what about this funny little dude? He's got such a square, boxy head, so it's sort of when we're going to be using photos were going to be looking kind of almost like a ziff. We can't see who this is. We're looking at the shapes and what we can do with water calories kind of block out in your mind the you know, the features. And look at this. These big shapes and you can quite easily create something that's pretty close to accurate by just looking at the shapes. Blow your eyes if you have to, To actually be ableto just sort of drag them out. You know, maybe something would be easier just straight on when you first start. And he is another gorgeous kill P who's got some of those pointy ears. This has got a lot of photo distortion, but that can actually look kind of fun when we're doing these little pictures. Maybe not. So if you're trying to do a realistic landscape on this little dude here, look at this. Look at this sausage body here and these little kid feet this person will crash. Needs, needs a hair job, this one. And what about those big ears? They're gorgeous. I mean, I'm not quite sure how we get it'll into the picture, but and that one again. A really serious photo distortion issue there. But, you know, work it out. Do it. It looks funny when you actually do it, and that's what we're doing. We're doing some things for fun. Maybe I'll just pick this little one here. So if I put this right here for you so you can actually see what I'm doing at the same time , I can't remember the name of that pooch, but I do remember the love. Actually, I'm going to use the seeing her again. It's just a light color that can help me map out this little pooch here. So I'm looking at the shape of the body, and it's like a sort of blurring my eyes. I know I've got a fit that little dog in, but what about if I just do Cem gestural strokes to start with, right, so this would have a head up there and remember, this is not realistic. And there's a curve blurring my eyes, and I'm looking at that. There's a sort of a nice could that I want to grab because that'll actually come out at the end of the day. These are the things that really catch our attention. They're sort of the essence. And if you can start to see these curves in nature sort of, you know, don't get too fussy here or just Plunkett there looks a bit skinny at this stage, liken sticking out of it. And then I think we go down. I can see that it goes back. So sweeping back and down. Yep. Now, I'm not sure if that looks like this little puppy yet, but bit more head and keeps up at the top there. And I think we've got quite clearly that you're coming out and on this side. Similarly, it goes up and a very regular piece of year on that site. So what about that tale? I'm feeling a bit nervous about that tale. I'm going to actually go down to a smaller brush for that because the Curly's get making me very anxious. So now I'm just looking very much at how the code doesn't start out there. It sort of starts at the point there, right at the sort of tip of his bottom. So out I go. Oh, and ho, what in blue? They're just going after the school and get it done and then on these legs. Oh, just theater. Always bigger than you think they are in dogs. That's probably a terrible foot. And then this one is I'm just looking at where it is. It's sort of more forward. So just put that down there, and then the other one is there and actually will just push it forward a bit more because otherwise that weren't look right. And then So we're going to put that you better stop there. I was gonna sticking that up a bit. So this leg here, just what you don't turn it into just a big blob. So that's sort of dried a little bit. I think I've got that a little bit. Been deep it That's okay. Keep your eye on the curves. And, of course, that sits way back there, not down at that level. All right, on that, because they're so we've got a pretty good shape there. So now let's flick over to the color. I don't actually have that blue color on my palette, so I'll just go for the darker color. Maybe we'll make it a bit ready. Brown. Why not will change him and there's a sort of a chesty bending there and you can see on if you want to dry areas in the shape like behind that a more shadowed first you can. But make sure you first before you do take advantage off the wit wet on wet technique. So if you want to put shading and now is the time to do it, if you want it to look nice and natural and more spontaneous in random, then if you were trying to achieve a very realistic results, so now it's probably going to just make it up a little bit here. Annoyed that I know he's got that dark bit, but we write off for the color that's gonna get my T shirt. Take a bit of that out. This is just really sometimes about making it make sense. So put quite a bit of safe here on me, and I think he's caught dark. They yeah, flips out and he's got a very distinctive um, like where he's brow is Thea. He's got his nose, Aiken sees, knows, could find that you need to stop and dry when you're feeling like you're losing control of everything and you just don't want to lose control, so I'm going to stop now and give that a bit of a dry. I think it's time for us to get some details in. As I said, I don't get too tight here. I could get really into a with the little curly bits, cities guard and everything else. But that's not what we're doing. So we know he's got his gorgeous eyes. I know I feel myself getting a little bit realistic here, so I need to loose enough. I think I need toe wet this area here. So if you've got an area that you want to define like a do here, it looks like I've just put a band around his neck. But if I with the brush, I put it on strong and then await the brush, and I'm basically getting the point out of my brush and leaving a little bit of water on, just see how you could just blend it back in. It looks really gorgeous, and therefore you can just, you know, recreate that blended look again. It's, um, toes. Now we'll dry, and now we'll be putting the little white dot c and again going for a nice thick mixture of the white, but it's still liquid in his eye. We could get a pretty groovy effect if we just look a little bit closer. This is all quite dark. It's got the two points of light. Let's see if we can achieve that. That's good. And maybe that's a bit of over kill. And then the nose has got a nice line of light on the That's a very loose rendition off that little pooch, and he's neck looks too long and everything else, but that could easily be fixed with a bit of touching up. But I just just bringing these back up a little bit more here and doing a bit of adjustments. You can keep going with it and have a great time. We could turn him into that lovely blue color that is by putting a wash of probably indigo or something over there and you could put detail in. But that does give you a bit of an idea off what you can do simply by looking at a photo and using photos by using photos to help you learn how to capture shapes. And that is the best way. If you're not good at observing from life, use photos and eventually you will actually start to remember the shapes of dogs I've painted them for so long, and that's actually held. Its come about for me is I just feel I just feel comfortable with their shapes. Even though I look at them all the time, I just feel comfortable with their shapes. So I hope that's a good little demo. Let's do another one just to make sure you've got the idea. 6. A Corgi Type Dog: way. So what I'm going to do now is this little sausage dog terrier. Excuse me if I'm not getting that name right, but I think it looks like a little fox terrier and we'll have another crack at that, using the same method that will just get you a little bit more familiar with it. So perhaps I'll just do a very rough, just a couple of little shapes. Sometimes we're things are doing. It just doesn't kind of make sense when you you look at it. But when you paint it the whole thing, that actually all starts to look like what it's supposed to be. The proportion of these little dogs is a bit cookie. Sorry, little dog. You are definitely a funny shape. Well, I think if they had big legs be just pretty ordinary. I think that's why people don't. That's why people like them because they are funny little sausage e shape. As you can see, this is what they called the collie flower effect, where it starts toe to flow upwards because some paints dry and some it's not, and I need to top up my paint. This is the Rossi in a hue the light one, huh? What you do if you start getting that qualifier effect, If that's not what you're looking for, because you could use that to is you just go back and get a little bit more paint and water and re wit the whole area that is already dry. So I'm just going toe with that again. And that war Pretty much, Mike. Everything on uneven power. It's all wet that way. Way I might just put a dub of that. Darkness actually, is quite a little dark in here around. The gonna be exactly you just let go of your expectations here because we're not perfect. We forgot his tail, heaven forbid. And just a bit of this and a bit of that just to put a tail on him. Let's go and grab a bit more sienna bit of a watery mix and have a think where that tile isn't sort of goes being right there there goes. But I think in that photograph he's wagging it. Was it a sloughing it out? The back there? God and it's very wedge. Take some of that off by just simply drying my brush and then lifting it like that and you can take some of the water off, which is a good idea. In this case. It's a little bit of a dark patch there, some putting a little bit of dark paint there. The but And I'm also imagining, despite the picture that there's a shadow and we could actually really put some nice color in here for you had a little bit of ultra Marine blow. You can actually get that in, and it just gives it a little bit of depth, and it's quite exciting. So, you know, like I said, you can use other colors and because these fatal why and I don't have any alternate color in the background just gonna make them brown, you must agree. It's starting to look like a dog. We give it a dry, and they will guard from the I'm going to now, coming with some darker colors, mixed up with a bit of the sienna. There's a little technique I'm using here. I've put more pigment in here, but I'm the back of the brush doesn't have. It's more just a bit of water, so I'm pressing it a little bit so that I mean, I think you'll get the feeling when you're doing it intuitively so you can actually see how impressing it down. So I'm actually just kind of pushing it into nothing. It's some something. You'll get the feel off. It's a little bit hard to explain without grabbing your hand and showing you. So I'm just sort of looking for these darker areas that I couldn't get a bit more depth in two. And it's like this little guy has quite a bit of a no, it's the lighting, and everything has got quite alone dark of food. The just put it us grab over there and it's got quite a bit of darkness behind here. And we're just inventing, really. And you could probably just define that a little bit in there here, and definitely this is our opportunity to sort this mess out here. All right, so I'm gonna go slow and just have it go it just making that lake Glick go back into the background, right? And we'll do the same with that one. Now that looks a bit crispy and hard edged the moment. So you just give you what brush a bit of a region's. Cap it off again and remember what I said just takes most of the water out. You don't be bone dry and then you can just ease it out and get rid of that really sharp line. Same here. You'll get the feeling of it cause you'll see. See how that's created another line. So wash again and wipe out this. Things I'm doing off the camera, I'm gonna show you and then just ease back into that area there. And it's stub and Genesis kind of a nice little texture, So he's looking pretty good. I think what we might do now is we could put some bands of color and white, but this isn't what we're doing. We're actually keeping it loose. Remember, that's the key here. So now I want to get his details in. So draw him off and then details. We're back again, and we're going to get those eyes and nose details in. It's went down our paint. That's getting a little bit dry over there. I'm going to just head straight into the CP a color, the darkest color we've got and get a bit of a mix. That's if if you get a feeling for it. And the more you paint with watercolor, the more you get the feeling for it. You just know it's too wet. And if you sort of have that instinct, you just dab it into a tissue there. Just suck that some of the water. But it's left the pigment on there, and now I'm just gonna go and hit the nose and all. See, look at that. It's just a little bit too like, but I'll utilize that while I've got it on the exits quite like that's actually a good thing because I want to. So I think about that. I a lot. First, they don't go and get more pigment on that brush and loaded up a bit. I better check it again because there's a bit of water on the palate. Take a bit of water at. I'm just taking it out of the back of the brush by tapping it. And now let's have another crack at that spit docking. Now that's better. These noise sort of has that lot on the top. He definitely has a smile, which is just inside. He's and of course, we could get stuck into it with a with white around there, but again, just depends on what the effect is that you're looking for. And you can carry on with that and might quite a realistic little portrait. But in this case, and he doesn't have black toys, but I'm just gonna put them into guide us just very quickly. Go. There's a few things that aren't quite right on that shape, and I can see it straight away. So we're not here to paint the Kogi portrait off the universe. Now, I'm gonna come in with the war, right? And, um, I just No, just let loose a little bit because he has Kogi. Or is he a kombi? Course heaven forbid. I have no idea. I'm gonna do it going. I'm gonna do it to see if I can rake it. You wanna see second work? Try Looks crazy. Doesn't bear with me. This is what happens when you add and I pipe pain. Now that looks awful, but we will change how awful it looks. Rinsing out the brush and a little bit of water in it too much. So takes more out and just peel it back. So I'm just taking out that sharp ege water, peeling it off into the tissue. But what you have, what happens as soon as you put the glass ashen. What? This is your changing the way the picture looks because from a watercolor, too, You know, where you're actually literally drawing all the details in. I can see that that went a little bit too far over the edge. But as we said, this is just a bit of fun down here. Yes, he does have little white feet, so you could pop them on. And he's got those little white clause, but we would be able to see them. So this is the artist Liberty at work. If you put all the wide and you go on and I think he does kind of need he's little color because he's just a kind of calorie dog And I've got that bit of red like a guy was a Brownie ridge and I think you could just quite easily put his clothes on like that points a little bit. Um, went there. I've just used it very thinly to stop all the guts a bit, which so watch out for that. Make sure paints dry. It looks better with his clothes on. And now we'll dry it and we'll do you the highlights. I'm going to show you a little trick that it's really good when you're only doing the whites of their eyes is just to use a nice clean brush and go straight into the tube just like that straining Don't and then let's do it. And a little bit of a nice shiny nose, which could be little is shot me that. And I think we have a good enough little terrier. He's in the fashion of the way we're doing these dogs, which is loose and watery. Yeah, I think he's done. 7. Lots of Dogs FAST: What we're going to do now is to do a little page off animals. Yea, so we're going to actually see if we can do a number of the more together. Have another go at it now that you've actually done single animals and I reckon you'll be able to pull it off. It's actually a lot easier, as I said, So let's get cracking. I'm just going to use my medium sellers brush again, which is the one in the middle. It's not the really super large one, and it's not the small one. It's the middle one. And I will just get stuck into this by going back into the the light, raw sienna and proceed by now. You should have doggies coming out of your dreams. Uh, get myself ready with a T shirt and off we go. Sorry. Just do some shapes again. Now you can just be free and easy because it doesn't matter if these steaks these are just little fun ones there . Look at that. That was pretty damn quick. That was probably about 55 minutes or so. We got a lot. Those the colorful animals on the page. Actually, I think We just have to have one more here. It's just these little bendy shapes. That's more like a little cartoon dog looking, turning around, his goodies back facing us. You can just sort of imagine him live there. Needs a leg there. There we go, sir. Let's just try the host with the hairdryer. Okay? So now we need the details. So we're going to go for the black for the eyes, with just the sea Pia eyes, nose. So you can really just make it. You can put the little pause. You know, you could not. You could come back and you can give them spots if you like. You know, they look a little bit like their eyes to make them sort of a bit more, you know, a bit more mortally, you've got your white, which I've got here. It was going to use it meet long as my brush is nice and clean. You can actually, you know, put some white spots on him little blotches, and then we're going to dry the black, and then we can put the white dotting. So in this case, I didn't even shade the the bodies of the dogs off kept it very, very simple, so that it's just quite delightful. It's got a really lovely feeling. Little watercolor dogs. They're just so gorgeous. I just find they make me happy. You could just sit down when you get home from work or something you could have. This is a tiny kid, really tiny. You just have a little dish watercolor dish, which you can keep the pain damn by putting it into a Tupperware container, just spraying it with water and just, you know, a little watercolor pad, and it would all just it into a drawer. And each time you get home, you could just sit down and chill out, put some music on. Do what have you do a cup of tea, glass of wine, Whatever. And do a little batch like that every evening when you get home, you would find that if you took this challenge on by the end of even a week, you'd be amazed at what you could do. So I'm going to challenge you to get stuck into this. We're gonna make a little challenge and just see what you can come up with, because I reckon that this is quite a good exercise to break you out of being tight about things, you know, it's up to you. I would suggest that you do them by yourself a really good quality sketchbook of some sort , because you can actually then have the page after page. It's like a journal, you know, 100 days of crazy animals would take you all of probably 10 minutes to do with your little kid. You pop it out on the bench and honestly, I love conceded results. 8. Painting from 3D Toy Animals: So I have bean trying to paint farm animals and kids toys, and it's not that easy, I tell you. Sorry, I'll keep trying. I'm up to my sheep. Let's see what else I can do. So what I've done here, I've actually finding the sheet as it looks like a shape like that. But then I painted the sheep from my imagination. So look at the difference. It's more cartoon like, isn't it? This is my peak, which is just terrible. But given that that is the pig I had to work with come to your own conclusions. So now I want you to see the difference between imagination and working from something living. So this is what this is about. So this is really kind of life, like in a way? Not really. But, you know, it's more me following the rial shape imagination, okay? And so you need to think about these things. What is it that you want to do? Do you wanna have fun or do you wanna try and replicate nature? I kind of like to have fun, but I kind of also like to know that I can replicate nature, so it's good to practice both. What can we try now? What have I got in here? Well, that's a penguin. Let me have a go with that. I'll try and replicate it, and then I'll do it from imagination. So he's kind of like a Well, I'm just going to go to Rule CN here again and on the wrong side of the page. So I'll just do his little body shape. They have. I just put up with ultra Marine blue is near, kind of goes down and it gets bigger at the bottom. It's got little would come here, and then he's got these legs. They like little tiny sticks at the bottom, and then little seat can hear them going at a PETA PETA, right? It is like this sort of silhouette. He's just gonna be there, right? So we just leave him there for a minute and he's got that little bit of red. But we have to come back on that when you strike now I'm going to draw him from my imagination. Oh, let's see how I go. Okay, go away. Pink would go over there least so interesting looking. Okay, Now we're going to put some features on this little critter. Why don't we start with Pinky? All right? The real ping wouldn't may. The rial penguins stand up to us and I'll have to put the white speaking the pretend penguin. Well, let's just give him a bit more comic allies, so I'm going to make them bigger. Is that's more comical. So, yes, I'll just stay there for a minute now, as sheep were on eyes. Oh, it's so serious, that shape, he's such a serious she p. But it's pretty evil or there. This little guy is my cartoon shape, all my imagination sheep. So of course he has two eyes and he will have a pink nose and this one will have to go. And then he's got a little mouse. And for my little pinky has got a car. Yeah, and it's much nicer. I need Why? Because the big let's be serious affront. Older bake was pretty boring, but we're doing anyway. It's just a big blow off. What with same for this guy. But look who looks cuter just looking to It's well, this car looks like just to be Dedi Penguin. While we honor with the wife Let's poppy sizing. I'm just going to and a little bit of data to this bake that would come in like that. But this guy, I like it just like that. I'm gonna leave it just like that. I've got to do the piece on me. Figs. Not my favorite. And there we have some crazy animals. I really do feel like something different here. Maybe just a little elephant, right? Justin Elefant. Okay, I'm going to use some bluey grey color on. Let's see if we can make. You must get this is a baby elephant. So he's a bit different. Bottom just mixed. A bit of ultra marine glowed with the Oh, I think it's the dark Sienna que i I The eye gets us the right landmark and it's sort of here. It feels so weird when you look at elephants a the weirdest shape grab things that really stand out. He's not. He's not true bad. All right, we've got one left the chicken. Or maybe you want me to do something harder. Don't you like that? Right. Well, that's the front, like groups. That's the back. Like, actually, you know, if you just drop a little bit of gluing. See how it's the tiniest bidding. Remember that there's a little trick about this. If you drop it in and let it find its own way, it actually won't get muddy. It just looks gorgeous. It just It just floats around and the pigment just kinda joins together. And it's just gorgeous. Look at that. I'm just gonna leave that there for a minute, just a little bit too much. So let's just put that into the tissue in to just suck it up a bit, Not not even touching it, it barely touching. So now what we can do is put a little bit more shading in, and perhaps also those little spotty spots with tons of them. So it just makes a bit of ultra marine blue for the shadows, and it's relatively dry. Just help to define some of the shapes. - And then we just put a little bit of a shadow underneath. If you wish just to be developed, marine blue and off zoom it up a bit, and that is a good, simple animal, so very easy to do. Just get into the detail if you want to, or keep it loose and farm, so let's see what else we can do 9. Thirty Second Exercises: I've got my time already and we're going to get started. A statue. Let's go. Right way. Look a 10 seconds all. It's not gonna work. Oh, and ups don't do don't and Oh, no. That's my terrible dog. I've gone over the time. There we go. That's a terrible dog. Oh, stop that. There we go. That is one horrible dog. Let's try again. Can we have another go at that? I wasn't really focusing. Let's try again and stuff. And I think I'll just give him something. Is with some time to burn. What is it up all the fines? Conflict. But that's the end of the 30 seconds. No fad. Okay, let's go again. 30 seconds. It's trying. It's juiced. Oh, no, that's terrible. Oh, no, That was even worse. I've got to keep trying. That one's really funny. 11 more. One more really slipped me. Get my plain true Stop. It's no bad. No, there we go. Yeah. Do you see the whole thing? This? Let me turn that off. The whole idea is to just keep going. And you can just use some old Robbie sheet paper for this. You know, some old a for white. On paper, it doesn't matter. But when you doing this, it actually really gets you to loosen up so onto another exercise now. And I'm just gonna use just a bit of all copy paper instead. So let me have another go at the timer. Groups go to get it back on. All right, Go. 03 seconds to go. And there we have it. I e did it. And there you go. I am going to let myself have one minute. Let's see what I can do in one minute. I'm going to use this one. This one of the top. I reckon he's got a very curvy shape. This all sorts of little Ben's, but gives me a minute. All right, I'm going to get my paint ready. I think I'm not used this brown One minute. That's a pretty good shape. Don't you think? I drink? I think it's pretty good. Let's try one more one minute again and I'm going to do this GOP, I beat the clocks. Oh, please. My clock. Six sixes. Let's to go on there. You have a beautiful shape. A lovely kill Piche I regard Do 10. Monsters: So I'm just going to fill in the rest of the page with just little random doodles, watercolor doodles using just puddles of paint, and I'm going to see what emerges from it. Maybe we'll drop some nice pink in there. You see, it just runs, and when you die, spool little around and mix it. You're just dropping the color in. It doesn't grow muddy because the pigment just sits alongside the other pigment. And that's how you get those beautiful electric colors coming out. It's just fabulous. Let's let's do another little example of that down here by putting a large pool, just a nice large pool of color. What the And then that's just a seeing her in a red gold and then just drop some reading and we could drop in a color that would be normally on opposite and create mud. We're not getting mad at allowing and then just putting some really intense Starks. We could just go like this and then you've got the look at that. It's just so wonderful. I have a very limited palette here, but that is just splendid, actually. Is he drawing? I'm not yet, so let's try putting when I was making my little funny creatures. And as I'm going here, I'm just saying Little funny creatures emerging. This is like kids. Play isn't alert. There's my little hand. This looks to me like some sort of little pretty with long years and little legs walking along e killed the friend. What's happening here? Trying. Just throw some years and eyes and things on. You'll probably find that they soon make sense. It's almost like a little frog. I will make him afrc little legs with these funny choice tips, so I don't know what's going on under there, But let's put another little foot there. You'll see here that we were talking about the clouding. At some point, you can deliberately use that for effect to get gorgeous textures inside your animals. So let's evolve from this and move to a another place where we can be more intuitive on it and have a little bit more freeform funds. So before we don't se there we go with turned them into creatures just by putting a little face on them. Sorry, they know they're not dry yet. Dog and the frog, and you can just keep going 11. Freeform Critters: Why don't we use the power of that bleeding? Gorgeous, melty molt Lee sort of perfect and make ourselves some really gorgeous animals. So I'm just going to top up my pain. I'm gonna put a bit of India go in there. Don't have many colors here, so we're limited. You can go nuts with your colors. More ultra Marine in there and off we got So this time I'm thinking about what we were doing here, but yeah, we're just gonna be a little bit more deliberate. I work doas many. But these little sketches, these are what give you the ideas. So when you're being silly in having fun, like I was just doing random stuff, things emerge that you would not have actually be nable to plan. I think this is very important to take note off. We don't plan craziness. It just happens with those familiar anyway. And, um, it always has happened for May. But this is how you find unique ideas. It's by playing random experiments on something pops out and you go, you say, Well, I'm just going to run with that, so let's do it. Okay. Here we go again. Okay. This time I'm going to be thinking about characters. I'm going to put some more random flops. Okay? I just put a bit of an orangey spotting there and maybe there. This is where maybe use the paint a little bit more intensely to really get some drama in there. I'm wiping back onto my I could have my key issues here, but I'm just walking back into the paper. Tell that I've got to sit on to the side. So let me pop a bit of Let me try putting bit of even to go in there. Oh, that's interesting finding, doing something rather with you to go. And I think by now you'll be feeling your imagination starting toe. I really enjoy this process. Okay, We could just let that seat like that. I mean, dry it and old stuff out. Let's go. I just want to make a point off when you're drying. You'll see. As I said earlier on that these little the's little meetings of the dry with the wet paint . And while you're not wanting those when you're making a nice, smooth wash, when we come to doing these sort of little free handers, they are just superb. So we'll stick with that and will encourage it by drawing side. Now tell me that that is not tutus. A little bit of texture there, just looking. And you've got more takes to here. It's just so gorgeous. Random Dribbles Global's Yeah, he is where you could get down on get your details. I'm just using whatever dark color I've got. And I think you know what's happening here with this little guy and sort of see this I there and there's his nose. Definitely conceive a big year there. So I there and a little nice and all This guy here, my ostrich, he just has to have that. Now, I don't know what I know it is going here, so I think he might be a bit of a lizard. It's got something happening out there. Some little claws on him. I think he needs another leg and definitely some little claws on this guy all over these little cheek pores. They don't need anything. This guy does need these little leg feet. Do you know what's coming? News? I think we're on tricked it 12. Thank You Whats Next: Hello, You are You did it. You got to the hand. How did it go? Idle. Have to see what you came up with. So please post some of your little demos at the bottom of the modules. If you feel like what I suggest you do now is get that little watercolor kit out that you set up or if you haven't set it up so you can just work at any time. Just keep it on a mini scale so it doesn't intimidate. I think it removes that feeling of arts too hard to start. If you do that just makes you feel braver and have a little sketchbook toe work in. Use good quality paper in it if you can. Because that way, you if you do do something that turns out really good, then you can tear it out and frame it later on. So you keep up the quality of the paper that you at least 250 GSM. So please drop me a line with any of your questions or thoughts as I love getting your feedback and I will reply. So thank you. Thank you for joining me on this little adventure. into making out tiny watercolor animals. It was a ton of fun and I hope I can see you in another course soon. Bye for now.