Transcripts
1. Introduction: Hello. My name is Alex. I'm a pet portrait and animal artist specializing
in acrylic paints. I've painted
hundreds of pets and animal portraits in the
past, not only for fun, but also for clients,
from boxers, Boston Terriers, labradors I've also painted a rabbit
before for somebody. In this course, I'll
be showing you how you can paint your
very own pets or animal portrait all the way from a reference photo to
a finished painting. It's completely
beginner friendly, even for people who have never painted in acrylics before. We're going to be going over how you can find a good
reference photo. How to sketch out this
reference photo onto your canvas without the need
to have good drawing skills, finding materials that
won't break the bank, but also going to do a good job, how to mix your colors, add layers, and also tonal
shifts in your painting, meaning that you don't need to paint every individual hair. Hopefully, by the
end, you will have a painting to be proud of and it may be even inspire you to create many more
paintings in the future. So feel free to
paint along with me. Alternatively, you could
watch the videos all the way through to the end and then
start your very own painting. I'm really excited to have you here and I can't
wait to get started. So without further ado, let's talk about
the class project.
2. Class Project: Firstly, I just wanted to
touch on the class project. Obviously, I would love
for you to share any of your painting that's
down below in the project and
resources section. I will comment and give
feedback on every single one. You could use your
own reference photo. You could maybe take one of your own pets or
favorite animal. Alternatively, you could use the reference photo that I'll be using or link this down below. If you do have any questions, please post them in
the discussion thread. Down below, I will
get back to all of the questions and comments
that I see on there. Don't forget to follow me on Skill Share by clicking the
follow button at the top. This way you'll be
notified when I upload any new classes
in the future. And you could also follow me on Instagram at Alex Goddard Art.
3. Materials: I'm going to run through all the things you're going
to need for this class. So the first thing is a
regular sketching pencil. I'm just going to
be using an HB, and you're also going to
need a ruler and a rubber. These will all be for
your pencil sketch. Next, moving on to brushes. You're going to need brushes
in three different sizes, small, medium, and large. I really like to
use flat brushes, but it doesn't matter if
you use round brushes, either will work fine. You can pick brushes up
fairly and expensively, just make sure that
they're labeled as suitable for acrylic paints. As a general rule of thumb, if your brushes are getting misshapen very easily and the
bristles are falling out, then they may be too far toward the cheaper end of the spectrum, and you may want to consider investing a little bit
more money in them. A great brand for medium price point brushes is
Windsor and Newton. You're also going to need a
cup or a pot of clean water. You'll need to be changing
this fairly frequently, and also an old rag to wipe
your wet paint brushes onto. Next, moving on to paints, there are many different
brands out there at different varying price points. I really like the Dala Rowney
graduate Acrylic series. They're a little bit
more affordable, but they still do a
really great job, especially if you're a beginner
or intermediate painter. The painting surface
that I'm going to be using is a stretched canvas. Again, just make sure
that the one you pick up is suitable
for acrylic paints. I'll be using the size 30
centimeters by 30 centimeters. And I've chosen a
square shape as this will just suit my
reference photo better. Also going to need a palette. So I'll be using one of these
disposable tear off sheets. They're fairly easy to
get hold of and cheap, or you could easily use something
line around your house. Think about something
like an old plastic plate or sheet of glass. You don't need the best or most expensive tools and paints. The main thing is that you're learning the techniques I'll be teaching you in this class and putting them into practice.
4. Choosing a Reference Photo: So I already have a reference
photo that I'm going to be using for this
course and it's a photo of my brother's dog. He's a boxer and
his name is Rusty. I've painted him twice
before in the past. This will be the third time
and he's 8-years-old now, so he's going a bit gray. And yeah, I'm just really
excited to paint him. If you wanted to paint him too, I will put the reference photo in the resources
section down below. So you can print that off. I've just printed it
out onto a four paper. Alternatively, you can take
a photo of your own pet. A couple of tips for taking good reference
photos are take them outside on a cloudy day
and also with no flash. If you don't have a photo of your own pet and if
you didn't want to use the photo that
I'm using of Rusty, then there is a third
alternative and that is to use royalty free websites like
Unsplash and Pixel Bay. I use these quite often. There's hundreds of photos
on there and you don't need to worry about copyright as
they're all royalty free. So once you've decided
on your reference photo, you want to, as I said,
print this out onto paper. We're going to now use it
for our pencil sketch, and I'm going to
show you how to do this using the grid method.
5. Your Pencil Sketch: We're going to begin
our pencil sketch now, and we're going to
use a technique called the grid method. So this is a really good method if you're not a very
confident drawer. So the first thing you
want to do is divide your reference
image page up into 1 centimeter squares
using your Rule. Just be aware of the size and shape of canvas
that you're using. So mine is a square canvas. So I've drawn this outline around my reference image first just so I know exactly what is going to fit onto the canvas. I'm just going to continue
drawing my grid now. So as I mentioned
earlier, all my squares are 1 centimeter
by 1 centimeter, so there should be 20 of them going cross and
20 of them going. Now going to number my grid. You start from the top left
hand corner and obviously, you start from number one and go all the way to the
end of the grid, and then you do the same
from the top to the bottom. Obviously, if you've decided to use your own reference image and you're not following along with me using Rusty's image, then your scale may
differ slightly. Also depends on the size and shape of canvas
that you're using. Next, you want to
transfer the grid from your reference image to your
drawing paper or canvas. Make sure that the grid on
your drawing surface has the same number of squares
as the reference image. Mine is slightly larger, so I'm going to increase
the size of my squares from 1 centimeter to 1.5 centimeters, but it is vital that you have the same number of squares
going across and going down, so I'm going to keep
mine as 20 squares. If this method is
confusing for you, then please feel
free not to do it. So you can freehand
sketch if you want. There's also other
sketching out methods, choose whatever works for you. If you are following
along with this method, you should now have a
numbered grid drawn out on your reference image
and your drawing surface. Once you've done this, it is
time to start the drawing. When you start your drawing, carefully study the details within each square of
your reference image. Just pay particular
attention to shapes, lines, and shaded areas and replicate all those details onto the corresponding squares
of your drawing surface. Will take a bit
of time, but just be patient and it's
definitely worth it because you won't be
making as many mistakes or having to rub out any
errors that you've made. Once you have completed
your pencil sketch, you just want to
take your rubber and rub out the grid
lines and the numbers. Don't worry too much about
this. You're not going to be able to remove all
traces of the pencil. We are going to paint
over it, so, don't worry.
6. Preparing Your Palette: The number of
different paint colors available nowadays can
be quite overwhelming, especially when you're first
starting out painting. To keep things simple,
I'm going to be using five colors for this
painting demonstration. I'm going to be using
three primary colors, one blue, one red,
and one yellow. I'm also going to use burnt
umber and titanium white. I guess if you
exclude the white, it's actually only four colors. This is called a limited
palette but you can mix hundreds of different shades
from these four colors. It's certainly not limiting in terms of what you
can achieve color wise. I'll now tell you the names of the five paint colors that
we're going to be using. You'll probably notice that all my paints are from
different brands. There's no reasoning
behind that. It's just that I like to
try out different paints. As I explained in the
material section, you don't need to buy the most expensive
brands or paints, buy cheaper price point ones, they'll still work just as fine. Our red is called cadmium red. Our blue is ultramarine blue. Our yellow is called
yellow ochre. We're also going to be using a brown and that is burnt umber, finally, our white
is titanium white. This is my basic palette. I use these colors all the time, and as I said, you can mix hundreds of different
shades from them. They're really great
colors to use. You don't need to squeeze
out a lot onto your palette, squeeze out a small
amount and then you can always add to it as
and when you run out. You'll need double the
amount of titanium white, and you'll probably surprised about how little paint you use, especially if you're
painting on a small surface.
7. Starting the Painting: The first paint color we're
going to use is burnt umber and you want to squeeze a little bit out
onto your palette. And the way you want to use
the paint initially is, I would liken it to the
consistency of thick watercolor. So you want to add quite a bit of water and just mix that up. And when it gets to a very loose watercolory consistency,
and that's good. You can start using
that onto your canvas. We're going to use the
smallest of our three brushes, and then using the burnt umber and water mix
that you've just made, you want to start following
the pencil sketch outline. You also want to pay attention
to areas that are dark, and this is either because
the dog or animal you're painting has dark areas or because the areas
are in shadow. So just take that
burnt umber mix and also make those areas dark. So on this image of rusty, I'll be making the nose
and muzzle area darker, also the eye and the ear. Keep on using your burnt
umber and water wash. And as you can see, I've also added areas
that are in shadow. So that area that
is sort of under Rusty's ear that goes around
the jaw towards the mouth, that area is in shadow, so I'm making that dark as well. Once you've used the
burnt umber to follow the pencil sketch outline and also added the areas
that are dark, should have something
similar to this. The next color that we're going to use is our yellow ochre. So you want to squeeze some of this out onto your palette. And in the same way that you
did for the burnt umber, you want to add quite
a lot of water to this and make it the consistency
of thick water color. You want to use this yellow
ochre and water wash to cover the whole
of the canvas, so that includes
the background too, and you want to make it a very, very thin layer so
that it dries quickly. You want to make
sure that any of the burnt umber
paint that you added onto the canvas
is completely dry before you do this
yellow ochre layer. That's because if
it's still wet, it will mix in with
the yellow ochre, and you'll end up with kind
of a browny yellowy smudge. So yeah, just give
it five, 10 minutes. I won't take long because we're painting in very thin layers. But yeah, just give it a touch and make
sure that it's bone dry before you apply
the next wash. When you're using acrylics, you'll find that the first
layer that you apply onto the canvas is quite difficult to kind of
spread and move around. And that's because a lot
of it is being absorbed. Any layers that you apply on top of that first
layer will definitely be easier because they're being absorbed into the canvas
that little bit less. Now going to move on to
our next paint color, and this one is called
ultramarine blue. So again, squeeze a little
bit out into your palette. We're now going to mix
a dark blacky color. I never use black directly from a tube because it's
just very flat color. So you're better off
mixing your own black, and my favorite way of
doing this is to use the burnt umber and
the ultramarine blue. Just mix those two together, again, adding a
little bit of water. Using that dark black color
that you've just mixed, you want to find
the darkest areas in your reference image. So for this image of Rusty, it's going to be behind his ear, his nose, his eye, and around his muzzle area. And you just want to
use that dark paint to block these areas in. Obviously, if you don't have any dark areas like this
in your reference image, maybe you're painting
a white dog, feel free to skip this step. A little tip for you is to always start with the
darkest areas first. This is how I paint, and it always works
out well for me. So you want to start with
the darkest areas and then gradually build up to
your lightest areas. This is especially good for when you're using acrylic
paints as well. We're continuing using our
small flat brush here. Just keep adding
those areas of dark, so that could be
because the dog has dark markings or because
areas are in shadow. We're now going to add a
little bit of texture. So this is great for
painting animals because it creates the
illusion of hair of fur. So rather than having to
paint every individual hair, you can use this technique
called scumbling. So we're just going to take
a bit of that dark mix, and you want to
make it fairly dry. Don't add too much water to it. And then using either your
small or medium flat brush, you want to take that black
color and kind of rub the paint brush
over the surface so you're not covering the
canvas underneath completely. The next color we're
going to squeeze out onto our palette is
called titanium white. So we're going to mix a bluey,
greeny background color, and you want to take your large
flat brush and then using the leftover dark mix that you made from the burnt
umber and ultramarine blue, we're just going to mix
that background color. For this, you want to use a bit more of your
ultramarine blue, some of your yellow ochre, and some of the titanium white. Just keep adding
it incrementally slowly until you get the
color that you want. Background colors are obviously a very personal thing just choose whichever color you like, and also you want to complement the coloring of the or
animal that you're painting. Rusty has a lot of
orange tones in his fur, so I thought a bluey
greeny color would really contrast
with that nicely. Now, take your background
color mix that you've made and start painting
in the background. So you want to obviously follow
the outline of the head. And yeah, you don't
need to be too precise with the
color at this stage. It's going to look
quite patchy because we are painting in thin layers, but that's completely normal. We're going to add
another layer on later. So if you've got to this
point in your painting, you should have something
that looks similar to this. Obviously, if you're
not painting rusty, then it won't look
exactly the same. But hopefully, you've managed
to apply the techniques and concepts that I have taught you so far into your painting. So we've introduced our blue, our yellow bone umber, and our titanium white. There is one more
color left to use, and that's our red,
which we're going to squeeze out onto
our palette now. Now going to introduce the
technique of using layers. Now, acrylic paint is great for this because it
dries so quickly. Every time you
apply a new layer, you just want to make
sure that the layer underneath is dry
and this should literally only
take a few minutes if you're painting in
thin layers like we are. And we definitely want
to put another layer on the background because
it's looking a bit patchy. This is totally normal
for acrylic paints. This is how I paint all the technique that
I used to paint in thin layers and it
will look a bit patchy like this after
the first layer. Now let's squeeze out our red onto our palette and get going.
8. Adding Layers of Colour: We are now going to squeeze our cadmium red out
onto our palate, and we're going to mix
a orange type color. So I'm taking a bit of my yellow ochre and a tiny
bit of the cadmium red. Cadmium red is a
very strong color, so you really only
need a tiny amount. It's much easier to add a bit more if you need to than
it is to take it away. So just add little
bits at a time. And once you've added the yellow ochre and the cadmium red, you're going to get a
very bright orange color. And in order to tone
that down slightly, you want to add its
complimentary color. You've probably heard
about this theory before. So here I'm adding
a bit of blue. And again, you just want to add this gradually in small amounts. And as you'll see,
it kind of mutes the color of the orange
down, so it's not so bright. And this is the kind of
color we're aiming for. Going to take that orange
color that we just mixed. And at this stage
of the painting, you don't want to get bogged
down into too much detail. So you want to try and identify the big shapes of color
within your reference image. So I'm going to use this orange color to
paint in this area of Rusty's head because
the majority of the color here is orange. So I'm just kind of seeing this area as one
big shape for now. We are now painting in
our mid tone colors, and we want to make sure that
these are not as dark as our darkest tones and also not as light as our light tones. So it's a key factor to achieve a good
painting to have dark, medium and light tones. And the majority of Rusty's portrait is going to be made up of these
mid tone colors, similar to this orange
one that I'm using now. So it actually doesn't really matter what colour you choose. I could be painting
this I don't know. It may be a muted purple
color or a brown, but you have to make sure
that it's a mid tone color, and you'll still achieve the
desired effect of having an interesting painting and one that kind of
makes sense visually. You'll hopefully notice
that where we've painted that darker layer
underneath initially, that is showing through
this orange paint, and that's because
it's transparent. So in general, yellow and
orange paints are transparent. So that means they're
going to show whatever is underneath them. And this is a great effect in this kind of a painting
because it adds depth, and it also creates more of
an illusion of hair or fur. I'm just going to get
some fresh water, and then I'm going to move on back to the
muzzle area again. So for this mid tone, I'm going to be making a
muted bluy type color. So for this, I've used
the ultramarine blue, a bit of the burnt umber, some of the yellow ochre, and a bit of titanium
white, as well. And again, I'm
just referring and looking back at my
reference photo and picking out those larger shapes where most of the midtones fall. So I'm being careful not to paint in the darkest darks
or the lightest lights, and I'm just focusing
on those midtone areas. Don't worry if you
make a mistake here because with acrylic
paint, it dries so fast, so it's really forgiving, and you can quite easily paint over the top with a darker or a lighter color and adjust
your tones later on. I think I may have made the muzzle area too
much of a mid tone. So once this has dried, I am going to add some
darker values on top. But as I said before, this is so easy to do with
acrylic paint, so don't worry too
much about getting your values right
at the beginning, because you can always adjust them throughout the
course of the painting. So when I say the term value, this basically means or refers to how light
or dark a color is. So lighter colors will
have higher values. For example, orange will
have a higher value than say a navy blue
or a dark purple. I've just moved the
reference image to the left hand side as I do
some work here to Rusty's ear. So I'm using that same
muted bluey color for his ear that I
used on the muzzle. It's quite good not to use too many different
colours in your painting because you want it
to be harmonious. So if you use similar
colors in different areas, it would just kind of help
to tie everything together. I'm just working on
Rusty's collar now, so it's a slightly lighter blue. I've just added a little bit of the titanium white into the mix, and I'm just blocking a
color in at this stage. I'm not worrying
about lighter areas or darker areas
within the collar. I'm just massing in
that one blue shade. I've just mixed up a
orange for Rusty's eye, and this time I've made the
orange a bit more saturated, which basically means
that it's brighter. Saturation is a measure of
the intensity of a color. So the higher the saturation,
the brighter it is. So, yeah, for the first
layer of Rusty's, here, I'm using this
brighter orangy color. And now that that
layer of orange is already dry because I
painted in so thinly, I'm just coming straight in over the top with some
of the burnt umber. So if you look closely
at Rusty's eye, it's got lots of different kind of tones and warm
shades within it. So I'm just doing kind of a bit more of a detailed
work here on his eye. And I find when I
paint any animals. As soon as you've put the
work in to the eye area, it just kind of transforms the whole painting and just kind of makes it come to life. So I like putting in
this detail fairly early and not leaving it right till the end because it really does make
a big difference. I've now put the
highlight of the eye in. So for this, I used
pure titanium white, and this is going to
be the lightest value of my entire painting. So I'm only going to make
this area pure white. And the reason behind
that is your eye is naturally drawn to the area of the painting where
the highest contrast is. If you place a pure white
next to a very dark color, for example, here, that would be Rusty's eye area
is also very dark. Then it makes that
area really stand out and the viewer's eye
will be drawn to that. So I've mixed up a gray color using the orange that we
already had on our palette. I just added a bit more of the ultra marine blue and a
lot of the titanium white, and it's made this
light gray color. And I'm just going to
start working on the areas of Rusty's head that are a
bit lighter in color now. So I'm still not
going as light as pure white because I'm
just going to leave that, as I said, to that eye area. And yeah, I'm just again finding the big shapes that fit
in with this color. You want to be continuously referring back to
your reference photo. So it's all about looking
rather than guessing. So make sure that whatever
colors you're laying down are true to your reference photo and not just what you
think should be there. I'm still using that gray color. I've added a tiny bit more white here and I've got a lot
of paint on my brush, so I using that kind of scumbling technique
again in this area of his face so that you can still see the layers underneath the paint
that I'm applying. I don't want the
paint on top to be too thick that you can't
see what's underneath. I like that kind of
transparent look and the illusion
of depth as well. And after a quick water change, I'm going through
a little bit of work to Rusty's neck area. So it's very light. His hair is white here, but I'm not using
pure titanium white, although it does kind
of look like it when I paint the canvas here. It's not pure white and
also the layers underneath, the yellow acre and
the burnt umber. Because the titanium white
paint is transparent, these will show
through a little bit, so it's still not going to
be pure white in color. It's probably worth
mentioning here that if you have decided to paint
an animal that's white, a white dog or a white cat, very rarely in nature
are things pure white. So you want to be thinking about this as you mix your paints up. So yes, your paints
will be light, but there'll only be some areas of your painting that you should be painting
in pure white. And this refers back to what I was saying earlier
about having your highest contrast in those areas where you want the viewer's eye to be drawn to. So consider using pure white sparingly and maybe
try mixing up some very light
purples or kind of light brown colors and using these instead
of just pure white. Okay. I'm continuing adding
the light tones in here. As I said earlier, I always
tend to start off with my darkest values first and then work up
towards my lightest. This doesn't necessarily mean that I'm not going to go back in later on and refine the
painting, and by this, I mean that if I feel like
areas need to be made darker, I will readjust
those dark values, and I will have to probably do the same to the light
values accordingly. Going to add another layer
to my background now, so I'm mixing up that same
color that I used before. And as I said, the background after the first layer can look a bit patchy. So I'm adding in this
second layer to make it a bit more kind of
opaque and uniform. So this is a good opportunity to tidy up any edges
that you need to. So I'm just kind of using the flat edge of the paint brush here to cut into
shapes just to try and emphasize these a
bit more and also tidy up any kind of edges where paint has gone over where
it shouldn't have done. I so at this point, you should have something
similar to this. So we've added in our dark
medium and light areas, and we've also added
in a background. So the final thing to do now
is the finishing touches. So you just want to revisit
your different value areas, so your darks, mediums
and your lights, and just make any adjustments
where you need to. So I'm going to work on this
area here and also I think this bit needs to be a
bit darker where it's going around his cheek and under his chin
towards his nose. I'm also going to work a
little bit more on the eye. I'm also going to
do a bit more of the scumbling technique around
his nose and muzzle area. So just taking that dry brush with a little bit of the
darker paint on and just rubbing it over the
surface will create more of an illusion of
hairs and whiskers. I'm going to do
that in this area. Let's now move on to
the finishing touches.
9. Finer Details: So making a start on
the finer details, and I'm moving straight
into Rusty's eye area. I'm just darkening
the dark areas using that mix of the burnt umbert and
the ultramarine blue. I'll just remind you about what I've already
said about black. I don't use black
directly from the tube. I find this to be a very
kind of flat color. So I mix my black using the burnt umbert and
the ultramarine blue, and I'm also going to mix a lighter orangy whitey color
using the yellow ochre, titanium white, and a
bit of the cadmium red. And yeah, I'm just working on the reflections in the eye
and also the tear darks. Yes, I'm just putting
some white highlights into this area, too. I'm revisiting all of my dark, medium and light values and
adjusting them accordingly. So I'm making areas
darker where they need to be darker and lighter, where they need to be lighter. It's worth mentioning that
when acrylic paint dries, it changes color slightly. So when you painted
on the canvas, you think that it's going to
look the same when it dries. And with oil paint, this is generally true, but with acrylic paint, it
does dry slightly differently. So that's why it's important
to come back in and do this process and this kind of refining of your dark
medium and lights. So for the next two or 3
minutes of this lesson, I will just let the music
play in the background, and I'm going to continue with the refinement of my dark
medium and light areas. So that's just using
my darker colors, my blacky type color, and my dark blues, and then my medium
tones as well, which are my oranges and my browns and also
my light tones, my light grays and light blues. So just continue those colors. Don't focus on one
area at a time. You want to be looking at
the painting as a whole. And referring back to
the reference photo. And as you scan over it, you'll just see areas in your painting that need
to be tweaked slightly. You need to make them
either darker or lighter. And yeah, it's all
about judgment, really, and about looking and not just guessing what things
should look like. I'll also continue to
add in my details. I'm going to do a
bit more work on the collar area behind the ear and maybe work on the muzzle and
the nose a bit more. So yeah, just enjoy
the next two, 3 minutes of music and watching me refine
those different areas. This is the point I've got
to with Rusty's painting. So if you wanted to, you can continue now adding your dark, medium and light areas of paint in the way
that I've shown you, maybe using more of that
scumbling technique. I'm going to finish the
painting here, personally, I love kind of more of the unfinished loose
look in paintings. So when I receive commissions, it does normally take me around 10 hours to
finish a painting. And I'd say I probably spent
about 2 hours on rusty. So it really depends on
the look you're going for. If you're happy
with the painting the way it is, then stop there. As I said, if you did
want to carry on, it's just about continuing to add or refine those
areas of dark, medium and light paint and
also adding in more details. So you may want to add
a bit more detailing to the eye or maybe around the
ear area or the collar. It's entirely up to you. But I'm really happy with
the way rusty looks. And as I said, I like this
looser unfinished look. So I'm going to finish
the painting there.
10. Final Thoughts: I really hope that you
enjoyed this lesson. I have loved teaching you. If you wanted to
varnish the painting, then wait for it to
be completely dry, and then you just want
to choose a varnish that is suitable
for acrylic paint. Personally, I love to use a gloss varnish because
it gives it a nice sheen. Just make sure that the
brush that you used to do the varnish with which I would recommend to be
a painter's brush. Just make sure that you don't need to use it
again in the future because you won't be able to get the varnish out
of the bristles. Thank you so much
for joining me in this course and I hope to
see you in my next one. Please don't forget to post
photos of your creations. Below, I will look, comment, and feedback on every
single one that I see and I hope
to see you soon.
11. Using Glazing Medium (BONUS Lesson): I wanted to include this
bonus lesson to show you what you can
achieve if you carry on working on your portraits. So I'm going to introduce
a new material, and it's this glazing
medium from golden. So glazing is a technique
where you can add transparent layers of paint
over the existing layers. And it's a great way to
add depth and dimension to your paintings and to bring out the colors or the
forms underneath. If you wanted to
invest in a bottle, I think for this size, it's around 15 pounds,
so it's quite a form. I've squeezed some
out onto my palette, and I'm just going to
mix with the ratios of around half to half
of the burnt umber, paint, and the glazing medium. And hopefully, you'll
be able to see as I add this mix onto
Rusty's portrait, it really makes the areas of color become more rich and
gives them more depth. So yeah, just refer back to
your reference photo and see if you can identify any areas
where this might work well. So I wanted to make this area around Rusty's jaw a
little bit darker, so I'm using that here. And I'll just work my way around the painting
and refer back to the reference image to see where I want to add more
of this glaze. I'm now going back
to my palette and I want to make a yellow
ochre glaze this time. So again, with the same ratios, 50% of the glazing medium and 50% of my
yellow ochre paint. I'm going to make that glaze up. And now I'm going to go back in and make the warmer
areas warmer. Obviously, yellow ochre
is quite a warm yellow. So where Rusty's got
areas that are more, say, in the light or areas
that looks warmer, I'm going to add this
yellow ochre glaze on top of those areas. I'm just taking a
larger flat brush here to work on larger areas. You want to alternate between your different sized brushes
depending on which kind of, you know, areas you're doing or how much fine detail
you're working on. Yeah, so just bear this in mind. And also, it's a reminder to change your water
if you need to. I have now switched
to a lighter glaze, so I've just added
some titanium white into the glazing mix along with a tiny bit
of ultramarine blue, just to make the yellow
ochre a bit more muted. Again, referring back to
your reference photo, look at the lighter areas, either because these areas are reflecting light
or perhaps because it's just areas of
Rusty's hair that's lighter where he's going a
bit gray around his muzzle. I'm just going to fill
those areas in now. One. As you'll be able to see, there's lots of
periods where I'm kind of pausing and not
painting on the canvas, and this is because I'm looking
at the reference image. As I said before, you want to paint what you see, not
what you think you see. So actually, I probably
spend more time looking at the image than I do
of the painting. Yeah. So I have edited
this video as well, so I've cut out some of
the really long pauses. Just take your time and use your reference image
as much as possible. So, as I'm working
up the painting to more of a finished
style in inverted commas, I thought I would add another
layer to the background as well so that everything's kind of tying in
nicely together. So I'm just mixing up
that background color, and I'm going to make
it slightly lighter. Acrylic paint tends
to dry a bit darker. So yeah, I'm just
mixing up a bit more white into the mixture
to make it a bit lighter. And also, white is a cool color, so it will make the
mix slightly cooler, which will really
nicely offset against the warm tones in Rusty's hair. I'm going to incorporate some of that background color
into the painting. This helps to
harmonize everything. So I'm just adding because it's a similar color to
around Rusty's Malary, I'm just adding that in here. I'm kind of using a bit more of a scumbling effect here
rather than glazing. So just, yeah, rubbing
the paint brush, fairly dry paint brush
over the surface. And don't worry if
you go too light, as you can always
come back in with some of your darker paint mixes. This is the beauty
of using acrylics. If you make a mistake, it's
really easy to correct it, and it's really easy
to change the values. So, again, I'm just coming back in with my darker tone now and just making areas darker where I added too much
of the lighter paint. Mm I'm now taking a very fine brush, and I just want to add some white paint
around his muzzle, and I'm not painting
in every single hair. I'm just painting in
a few here and there just to give more of a
suggestion rather than, you know, painting literally
a photo realistic image. So yeah, just place
a few here and there where they stand out on
the reference image, and I'm also putting a few
whiskers around his mouth. I will show you
the stage I've got to with Rusty's
painting now after those glazing layers and also adding a few kind of hairs and whiskers in here and there. Obviously, you can continue with this for as
long as you like. It's completely subjective
how far you want to go. I think I'm really,
really happy with it. So I'm just going to
paint the edges in now. I always save those till last. So I just paint the edges in the same colour as the background. And yeah, then I think
he's good to go. I hope you've enjoyed
this bonus lesson. Glazing medium is
such an amazing tool. I would highly recommend buying a bottle
and trying it out. Just make sure you
don't use it too much in the initial
layers of your painting, save it more towards the end when you're
doing your final layers, just have a go and see what
you think are the results. I would love to hear
from you. If it's the first time you've used glazing medium on
your Aclqe paintings, I'd love to know how it went. Anyway, happy painting
and see you soon.
Alexandra Goddard, Pet Portrait and Animal Artist
