Watercolor - Let's Paint a Dog: Black Lab with Leaf Edition!

1. Intro: Hey everyone, welcome back to another skill share class. My name is Mary Evelyn and I am going to be teaching you how to paint Oscar. The black lab today, including a cute little maple leaf he found out in the yard somewhere. And I thought it was just super adorable. So I asked his owner if we could use this as a demonstration for today's class. And of course they agreed. So super exciting to share this with you. This also can be applied if you're trying to learn how to paint your own dog that has very similar coloring to this one. You can apply the same techniques and just explore your own. You don't have to follow this exact outline. I'm going to share some tips on just how to achieve this. We're going to walk step-by-step through each piece to achieve the entire painting. This is an eight by ten watercolor. So we're gonna be doing watercolors today. And I have a little bit of an extra edge and that is simply to tape it down to a foam boards so that it does not create a buckling or waving. During the painting process, I am going to show you how to transfer the turnout in this class and you can find that print out the outline is already drawn up for you in the class projects area. And find on the AP or your iPad, just go straight to the Desktop, go ahead and get that printed out if you want to freehand it, go for it. No big deal. Or if you're doing your own dog, that's perfectly fine. So this class we decided to just add that in there. And if you're not already, please go ahead and hit that follow button. You'll get notifications and updates on new classes that'll be posting. And you'd just be in the know on what's happening via my account. I would love for you to follow along with everything that I'll be posting and updating and without further ado. Let's get to painting because that's what you're here for. So remember, be kind to yourself. This is a no judgment zone. I want you to have fun. I want you to experiment. I want you to find what works for you. And let's go for it. You've got this. 2. Supplies: Okay, for this class we are going to go over our supplies that we are going to use. I'm going to start with what we already have on the table here. I've got my Pete's picked out. I have this on a butcher tray ceramic platter this time, I've got my paints picked out. We're going to put up a picture of the paint so you can feel free to stop the video and grab those colors. Those are all. Those will also be in the supply list. We are going to use two watercolor pencils. I have got a white and a black fabric. Gusto. The gold fabric, aqua. Those are awesome. We are only going to use one brush. And today's tutorial, this is a Kulczynski legend. It's around, it's a number for it has a beautiful tip on it. This is such a great brush to achieve lots of different things with just one brush. We're going to use our signal unit ball, white gel pen. And great thing to have handy. We're gonna have our pencil sharpener and a pencil for whiskers as well. I just grabbed a kneaded eraser for when I want to gently erase off any bold wine I may have made during the transfer of the image. I've got r items for transfer masking tape. I've got just a plain gel pen to do the outlining. I've got my printout. I've got my graphite paper. Dark side does go down on this one. You can tell that there's a light side of gray and then I've dark. And then I have my phone board. The stuff is great. You just want to make sure it's a little bit bigger than the image that you're doing. So you can take down your watercolour paper to that. Any watercolor paper should suffice. I am going to be using a, a 140 pound Kilimanjaro cold press paper today for this class. Really whatever you feel comfortable with, the Kilimanjaro is a cotton paper, so it will act a little bit differently than a non-constant watercolor paper. And finally, I've just got a little washcloth. I actually trim a little piece to have off to the side because I'm going to constantly be using this to monitor my brush saturation. And then I have to water jars off to the side. I've got a small one and I've got a little bit bigger one because we're going to be dealing with black on this dog. I want a bigger jar to be able to rinse off the brush with the black, especially when you go into the leaf. So with that, let's get started. 3. Transfer: I'm going to take down our paper to the foam board simply to keep it tight while we're painting. It really helps with preventing buckling war being, especially after the papers completely dry. And then I'm going to lay my transfer paper. Black side downer should be like a lighter gray area versus the darker sides of face to the dark side down. Transfer, print out on top, follow as many lines as you feel like you want to follow. Do not feel obligated to copy every single line. Give me Justin direction. That's the point of transferring your image. And from there, we're gonna get going with our project. 4. Eyes: Okay, to jump into this class, we are going to start with the eyes. We think the eyes are good anchor point for a pet portrait painting you are working on. I am going to take my number four Galinsky round. It's got that really nice sharp tip on it after getting it in a little bit wet. I am going to be using this towel to constantly monitor how much water I have in this brush. That's pretty important when it comes to small details such as around the eyes, the pupils and irises. So I'm going to take that and I'm going to grab a little bit of the black squash. I like to have a nice deep matte black for the eyes. Okay, here we go. So I'm gonna start by lining the outside of the eye and you can take kind of a nice lighter wash. It doesn't have to be a super heavy pigment. The first go around and feel free if you have a smaller brush, maybe a one or a 0, feel free to use that instead of this bigger brush. Use what's comfortable for you. That's kinda of the name of the game with watercolor. I am not a teacher. I am a, let's figure out what works for you teacher. And they think that's part of finding the love of any kind of creative outlet or art is finding what works for you. Okay, so he went around the edge of the eye. We've got this little dark line right under the iris data, little edging. There's a little bit of a white water line right there and over here on the edge of the, I went ahead and filled in the pupil. And I'm gonna do the same for the other side because these eyes are so little. Shouldn't take too long to kinda sweep around the edge. Go around the bottom, follow your guideline. And really that guideline is just to give you direction. You don't have to copy every single line. You don't have to copy every single thing is just to give your self a reference in what you're about to do. Okay, so I've got that filled and now this dog has kind of a brown grey I he's got brown eyes now, but I think when he was a puppy they were more blue. So I'm actually going to make some Van Dyke and a little bit of French Gray. And what I'm hoping we'll achieve with this is I'm gonna go around the iris and I'm going to pull in some of the pupil, the black pupil. Now we can add a little bit of Payne's gray, which may have to happen here. But I'm going to just tap, tap, tap around the pupil just to see if we can get it to fade in a bit. We'll go ahead and do that to me other ice or that we're even in tone. Here you can see how tiny that tip is on this brush. So any kind of brush it has a nice comes to a nice fine too, will work just as well. And really the color of these eyes, you can make them green, you can make them gold. So if you have a black Lab or you know, someone who has a black Lab, feel free to use whatever colors work best for you. And I am going to dab this a tiny bit of the Payne's gray along the top there and the edge. Okay? And a couple of things you can do with the highlight. You can leave the highlight. You can still an n and the highlight back. Or you can first get off those little edges if you have some liquid for skits or masking fluid, perfectly fine to do that. So I'm not that sit for just a second. Let it soak into the paper. Before I go back around the edge of the eye. I try not to make this too complicated. Don't overthink it. Td overthink things. So just a little dot of that black wash right there in the middle, it's going to start to fade out just a little bit, which is perfect. That's what we want to take it a little bit and go around the edge. So it's really a wet on wet at the moment. Don't get too carried away. Or it'll just fade right into the eye. And you can always add back a little tiny. If you wanted to just put a little tiny dot at the bottom of that brown just so it looks like it's got kind of that variegated. Look. Go for it. Again. Go with what feels good for you. I don't want to restrict you. Okay. I'm going to let that dry for just a minute. Okay. I think we are dry enough. I took a little bit of that whitewash, dabbed off my brush on the towel. And I'm just going to sweep it along the edge. You can create either around highlight where you can go over the edge of the top just a tiny bit. And really just depends on where the dog is sitting. And then sometimes you'll have blue and the highlight and that's a reflection from the sky, especially if they're sitting outside. So something to make note of, same was the for black fur is really just made up reflections of what's surrounding the fir. So if the dog is sitting outside, which this one was because he went and found a cute maple leaf. He's got a lot of blue in him because of the sky. So I picked out a nice blue that Payne's gray to use in the black to really try to achieve a really nice tone. Okay, the eyes are still damps, so that color, that white is kind of taken off. I think that will be fine for now. We can add a little bit of a darker block wash into the center. Like I said, it's a really deep black. It's going to create some depth. I can add a little bit more into the center, and this brings more expression into any pet portrait when you can really get a deep pupil. And I'm just going to swing a little bit more around the top and bottom, up and over. And I'm really just going to leave that until we get to the face and then will blend in the edges. And then if you really want a nice stark pop on those eyes, you're just going to take your append, tap, tap, tap until that ink starts to go. And should go right on top of that. And if you want to actually highlight their interest, remember your opposites. So if you have the highlight more towards the inside of the eye, on the opposite i, it's going to be towards the middle. Okay. Let's move on to the notes. 5. Nose: For those of you that have taken. So my tutorials, you know, a bit about how the nose is constructed. You know that I like to start with the black wash on the nostrils. It's a base of mine with diagnosis that are similar to Oscars nose here. Black, deeper black for the nostril, unless that dawn has like a brown or a blonde color knows. I typically always going to start with the black wash in the nostrils and then I'm going to swing it out and around to the edge there. Down, down, down. What this is going to achieve with aging. This is what the Black wash, it can be manipulated with water. So even if it drives, you can kind of do a little bit of scrubbing and it'll blend versus some watercolors will just immediately stain the paper. There's little drowsy. I'm gonna grab just a tad bit of Payne's gray and do a light wash over the entire knows. I'm still trying to go around where I painted, but it's going to blend in. And then you can pull water up off of the nose. Just damn you brush tempt him to m and c and lost a lot of that. Now, you can wait a little bit longer before you put the gray on there, the Payne's gray. But I'd just like to have a soft look before I start putting in my deep tone so I can go and I can just tap my papers damp. Just tapping that color into the edge. K and t. Remember our shock going to let that sit for just a little bit more of the Payne's gray along the edge here. We can dab your brush off and kind of sweep around. And I'll pick up a lot of that color. And you can always go back in and out a little bit of white wash on the top or there's a highlight. Mean just kinda spread it out a little bit. And we'll actually do that around the nostril. And just want to kind of show where that light is hitting. And then we'll go back and let the DPP, the deep black squash. And I am using the jet block. There's actually, it's 33 different color Blacks and the Holbein collection scan, you don't have to have the exact colors. Might just have to work a little bit harder to get a deep black with black watercolor, which is fine, in which case the layers is going to be your friend. There's nothing wrong with layers. Take a tiny bit of that white underneath and around the news there. We are going to let the nose dry and we're going to move on. 6. Ears: Okay, we are ready to dive into the ears. Like to start ears by etching the insides with my darkest color. So I'm gonna grab some that black squash. And I'm gonna sweep it along the edge here. You can add some lines if you feel like it. If you feel like you want to add a little texture for underneath that painting or you can just tap, tap, tap until you get to the top. Now the direction, I'm big on direction. So with, with, for we're gonna, I'm gonna just do these tiny little sweeps. You can just simply go all the way along the edge. Most of this is going to get lost. So we're just going to kind of gently sweep up and over. This little guy has little fluffy tops, tippy top so its ears. You can just take your brush and kinda tap tap tab, which was like that. Okay. This is traditionally how I like to paint. I like to add those really deep colors first and like an under painting. And then I will go in and add my wet on wet version. And then right in here or the ear kinda folders like a little dark triangle. If you'll fill that in, it'll give a little bit more shape to the ear where the, where the bends and the folds are will always be looking at the reference photo as values, highlights and shadows. You can remind yourself to simply look at everything and highlights and shadows. You think you'd be surprised at how much your art will change. Okay. I'm over here off to the side just damming at my pains grade because that is what I am going to use next. I'm just going to add what I have on my brush to the ear. So it was kind of a light wash. So I guess I still technically wet on dry since I do have pigment in my brush. And I'm just going to sweep along. Don't sweep too hard because remember that wash will disappear because that's just what it does. It's, it's property. Use a different type of watercolor, black if you want those markings to remain pretty solid. Alright, now that I've got that wet, I am gonna do what I want. I'm gonna grab some of the carbon black. And remember which one goes which that's neutral tint. So the carbon black tends to swing out like it, it grows in a way. So you just wanna go just a little bit wherever you want it to be. Kind of like a fuzzy look. Okay. And anytime where there's connecting points like the air that's going to connect to the face. And I'd like to bring out little points. So that way, it's a little bit more blended By the time we get to the face versus it's just kinda of disconnect. I'm gonna go ahead and do the same to the other air mu so that black wash. Again, personal preference, if you've got a different color, you feel free to use that just black and some sort of a blue tint. You could use a purple tint. Instead. I chose blue, more of the Navy tones. And I'm just gonna swinging along the edge there. And I am using this black wash almost like I used my neutral tint. A lot of times I have this really pretty gray with a little, it's got a little violet in it. So I used that to do shading or shadowing underneath colors. It turns out we're really pretty. We might use a little bit of that on the face is what I'm thinking is going to happen when I use a little bit on the ear once that dries, kind of faded out a little bit. So we're going to have to go back in and add some dark tones. But this is typically my process when painting dark colored animals is just getting the really dark colors added in there. And again, I'm just touching the edge of that so that it is a little more coherent. And always something to be thinking about is go from place to place so that you're not touching directly each wet area because it'll just blend in the next section unless that's what you're attempting to do and in which case is perfectly fine. Again, there's just not really any rules. I just like to kind of pass on information that could be beneficial to kind of guide you along the process. Now over here out of those little fuzzy March runoff route to atom over here. So I can just add those, wants this tones down just a bit. And the other approach you can take to the IRR is to do wet on wet, get those little bit of value in, and then go back over the top with those little first strokes, which is perfectly acceptable. There's not really a right or wrong way to do this. I'm going to take over my neutral tint and just see if I can achieve any little spaces over here without onto crazy. It's just a really nice grey. Tip, brush, brush, brush. Now the cool thing is looking at the ER dark enough. You can always go over the top of that with that white watercolor pencil on and create some really neat highlight effects. And I think of the words on what to use. This section in here is pretty much almost jet-black. But I won't jump into that just yet. Some of those little springs to stick out. Just kinda like that. And a little bit more still pretty damp over here. So it's just kind of blending in, which is fine. You're gonna learn. There's timing with everything. You're gonna be timing on when to lay down colors. Who's like when I'm adding these little tiny strokes here just to show direction of for, this is pretty much dry. Up here was a little damp, so it kinda just fuzzed, blurred in a way. And then same here and now that is so damp. So understanding that and just kind of dragging my brush through it just just ever so slightly. I mean, the tiniest bit of pressure and that's how I'm getting those little tiny for marks on the ear. And I think we're almost good on this other side. When grab some of that neutral tint, you'll find what you're comfortable with the longer you work with watercolor yeah, writing here, then damped still there running here, I can start adding some. So wisps. And I can water that down just a bit too. I chose to create direction and give those little, little sprigs here in there. I'm going to add a little bit of black wash on the inside edge here. And I'm gonna leave underneath that a little bit lighter. And again, just kinda deepen. And I'll show you how to mark the face before we go into getting too crazy with that and that did fade or slope on that side. But we will go back in with our final details with this so that it can have time to dry and then we'll go back in. And that's really my process and what I want to show you as far as jumping from place to place and then at the end, coming in with some of those fine details. Ok, let's move on to our feet. 7. Paws and Legs: Okay. We're going to jump into our Paul slash leg area. And for this, I'm actually going to go ahead and show you with the neutral tint. I'm just going to follow in between the toes. And I kind of gave Oscar here my feet that I like to do that I've started doing when I illustrating the Cooper book. So I've just kind of created this type of cute little Paul area. And I just think sometimes what that's part of art, we get to modify where we want. Okay, so we're kind of focusing on this lower portion here. And I'd say I have maybe like a medium range of pigment on my brush. It's not the darkest pigment, but it's not a super light wash either. So you can just kinda of follow along edges here. Is we will go in and do a wet on wet. And I'll show you how to get the black to really, really fade out there. But for this part, I'm just going to follow along edge i, you can go ahead and have a little more creative license. And it kinda sweep the brush so that you get those little firm arcs. And that's what I love about this brush to. Again, it can be achieved with other brushes as you just kinda take it. And you can sweep motion so that you can actually achieve little, little for marks. So that you have direction and motion. Which is great. Always a great thing when it comes to art. But again, you're gonna kinda have discover your style as you go along. Trying, I think is very exciting. Okay, and see how that just kind of added to the Paul kimono and gets more money. Mixture is going to follow the edges there and can take a more, more literal if you like. Or you can feel free to start adding some of those little direction lines. So what we're going to achieve is we're gonna go ahead and fill in this lower extremity. And we're actually going to go ahead and go around the leaf and the area because I'll be dry by the time we get up that section. Then that'll be done and we can go back to the face. So then we're waiting for the bottom side too dry while we are taking care of the face. And once you can start understanding that process and learning to jump around, I think you'll be a little more satisfied, but how quickly you can get paintings done. Okay, same thing here kinda for kind of comes down. So again, we can kinda just give. Direction is kind of poem that brush, stroke Up and Down. Kinda where those two meet. I like to say like swing those strokes so that they're complementary to each other. I don't have a straight stroke and then a curved stroke. I tried to, you know, it's almost like a dance and the way you have to work with each other. Okay, and keep on with that tint laying. There's a little dark section here. Again, you can either just fill it in or try to maintain a little bit of direction. Totally up to you. Okay. Go ahead and fill in this little section here is a little bit of shade. Shane work. And then I think I missed one of my lines. I sure did. Okay. So we take that way you are going up and we're going all the way up. And here you've got like a little dip. Most like we're the shoulder can i goes in so we're just going to give an illusion of the dark. Now here, I'm going to go ahead and fill that in and then take a little bit of carbon black. And just let it kind of pull into that section. Same thing here. We're going to sweep over my brush already clean and that's okay. Let's take a little bit of that carbon and run it across there. And again, you're going to learn how much pigment is the right amount of pigment and the timing. So you can hear it kinda starts to blend over, which is fine when I grab a little bit of that carbon black. Now there is quite a bit of pigment on the tip of my brush, but is, is just the tip of my brush. So I'm just gonna let that be there. Now because I have that what we're going to leave that little hind quarter hump. And so after we finished D, So I think my method is we're gonna fill in this little Paul here. And I'm just going to do, we're just gonna do a wet on wet technique. Let's just go straight over. Okay, and grab a little bit of that carbon black. I must start on the out, this inside edge here. Fill in the bottom, and then bring up the rest of that. With that, if you want to add that tone, let's add a little bit of Payne's gray to the top of that Paul right here. Just to give that blue cast. And if you feel like that Paul isn't quite dark enough, you can grab a little bit of the black wash. If you're wanting the black to be a little more controlled on a wet on wet technique. Try using the black guage versus the carbon black watercolor. The carbon Mike watercolors gonna spread quite a bit. So if you're wanting a little more of a controlled spread, I think that's what we'll call it. We'll call it uncontrolled spread. I would use the Guassian for sure. Okay, let's swing over here and work on this. Paul. Go ahead and put a light layer of carbon black. Or really any of your washes that you have to have a little bit of carbon. You don't want to spread too, too much. Damn your brush off on that and your paper towel. Okay. And then kind of see how it spreads out. Ok, we finished adding the paint around the edges. This is already dried when I'm on a dry. So we do want it a little bit deeper, kind of like the side. So we're going to use that wash in between the toes so we can actually just run a layer of water, just clear clean water right over the top. And then I'm going to grab some of folk wash and then add it over the edges of the toes. The idea here, so I'm just going to mix up wash. And when you go to grab p in general, I don't know if I've ever mentioned this. Try to go with the Saudi or brush versus a direct push down into the paint. Tend to always go with the sight of my brush to just swing on top of the pigment. It's just a little easier on your brush. For longevity sake. We're gonna go on here at the wash. Wash does not spread as much as that carbon black, so it's a little bit better controlled paint. I tend to really gravitate towards the gloss when it comes to a black or even a deep chocolate brown dog. Let's just kinda might go to, and I don't mind the highlights being in the middle there. I kind of like seeing a little bit of that texture. But remember, you can always kinda push and pull paint. So if you feel like there's a spot that may be a little too dark, just tap your brush off on your towel or paper towels and pull some of the paint up. You can always add whitewash or white watercolor back on top of that. So you went from the toes to the total on the opposite side. Since that touches here, we're going to avoid that. I'm going to swing back over. We'll finish this leg, go to that leg and then finish our hip area or something to that effect. We have to finish the Center before we go back up that way. Okay, so on this side, we've got our outline. I'm going to go ahead and just lay down a layer of water. So we're gonna do wet on wet here on this lake. And just kinda throwing a lot of different options out there to four. Accomplishing this dog painting. Again, my goal is to really help you focus and hone in on what works well for you. So if doing wet on wet first, getting the tones down, and then going back into detail works, that would be great. And I don't want to sound like a broken record either. Just repeat myself, but sometimes being reminded a few times during a lesson helps a lot. I know it does for me. All right, now this, I do want my carbon black. So again, I'm just kinda running my brush here to the side. If you feel like you have too much pigment, just tap on your towel. And I just love the way this pigment moves. Now, I feel like I've got just like a light gray. I'm gonna just grab some more pigment. Really want a deep black underneath the edge of this leaf. And along the edges of the Paul. Along the top here. Go and fill in that bright gap area there are and I'm going to do the same around the toes. Come around the bottom, just going to go up just a little bit into the toe bed area. And they kinda where that foot goes up in street where it's going to be like a little bit of a shelf, it's going to be darker. So that's why I'm just gonna pull that color up a little bit, grabbed a little bit more pigment. And I tend to either just do a tap, tap, tap or slide just a little bit that color. You can grab some of that Payne's gray if you want, and just sweep it into some of those highlight areas. Creates more of a texture. Alright, now to really make the black punch or pop, we're going to grab some of that black wash. Don't be afraid of the pigment. Kit a nice amount on your brush. And then I like to do a tapping method to put that color down. So especially where I know it's going to be extra deep, I'm going to just slide that on down. And in some places where your paper's still damp, if you add that color, it'll push the paint around just a little bit, which is great. We want that. Okay, so I'm going to grab just a little bit of the whitewash real quick and I'm gonna put it on the tops of the toe area over here. So I just want to add a little bit of a highlight back in there. And just let the paint kinda push, push everything or it wants to be rope here since there's little toe there. Okay, so that's pretty simple enough. So we're gonna go over and do the same thing with the other leg. The other foot should be dry enough. It's still I can see my papers bubble just a little bit, but it should be dry enough to where we can do wet on wet. So you don't hence swing over here and get this nice damp. Tend to take a look at the edge here. Look down at your paper so you get the reflection from the light on it to see if it's nice and saturated. And then come over here and get some of this carbon black. Not afraid of that pigment. Git a lot in they're gonna get a lot of results back. Just love it's raining properties and how it, how it looks. So again, you can kind of decide texture wise, what you want to keep, and what you don't. And this always ends up looking different. Then what you end up laying down, which is fine, no big deal. And again, the base that we added on there was that neutral tint really is a guideline in a way. It helps direct where the paint needs to go. So you'll see through right here. I kind of I don't necessarily want to harsh line right there. So that's why I blended Just a little bit of that carbon black over, just kinda swept it on over there. Okay. Let's do some black wash. So I have this here going between those toes. Tap, tap, tap. Following up to give a nice edge. Just really tapping where you feel like you want that depth. Again, looking at this as highlights and shadows. And same thing here. If you actually want a little bit of a shadow or that stem is going to be great. Alright, let's get some of that blue put in there. Use them that Payne's gray. Just tap, tap, tap. Now do be mindful of Payne's gray. Very much use whatever paints you want. Just be mindful of the color tone. I am using a Daniel Smith Payne's gray and it has a really pretty Navy tone to it. Versus some of them have a little bit of a green to them, so they're a little bit of a different tone. Just be mindful that when you go to add a blue tint, really you can use just about any color blue you'd like. And I think I mentioned you could use a purple to I'm going to just add a little bit more of the washed down here at the base of the toes and a little bit of the white top k. Now this edge here is definitely very saturated, so we're going to have to wait to finish this little hip area. I think we can go ahead and color in or deepen the color that's already there in this little pocket. Be mindful this leg, it's still a little bit damp. So if he can leave yourself a little bit of a line in between, we can fill that in at the end. And if you want someone a wisp succumb off that chest, go for it. Again. I'm just going to deepen right over that elif would be casting a shadow. And really the same technique is going to be applied to the hip area. Bringing it went on what? Dropper coloring. And I just realized, as I'm saying, is we've got this little pocket here, so we're gonna go ahead and fill that in with some color. And then grab some of the deep squash. Don't be afraid of that payment. Okay. Okay. We're just going to finish with a little hip area mullet this dry for just a few minutes, and then we will finish that section. And just like that, we've got these areas dry. You can swing a little bit of paint on top of this, but I'm gonna go ahead and fill in this little hip area first. Just a little bit of gray or clear doesn't doesn't have to be gray. If you use the clearer, you will maintain a little bit more brightness with any kind of extra areas. Squash, sweep out along the edge there. Always deciding how far you want to go with the texture. You can let it do its thing or you can kind of adjust it to suit your needs. Hey, looking very cute. You can go in and add the lines with the black wash and between the toes to kinda separate more. Kind of get an idea of more like what we have up here. So just, you can just kind of sweep some color up. And if you feel like you have too much whiskey, a little water, swing that pigment off of your brush. Come over here. This is where you get to have creative license on how you want this to look. And I'm just using small little brush strokes to create some direction. For this. You can kind of sweep up and give it a little curve towards the top so that they're not completely straight lines. They have a little bit of movement. Something that's kind of important to me. As far as pet portraits go. Every now and then, calls for a straight line. But for the most part, for his very first very flowing, if you think about water, water does not have straight lines. Water flows and compliments each other. And it's ripples and effects. That's kind of the best pieces of advice I can say is think about for water and the SPARS, the movement in the direction that it goes. Alright, again, I'm shaking over here. Fill in those little toe pads and we add some little little hairs here and there. And then you can go in and add a little bit and try to make them staggered as well. You don't want them in a straight line. You don't want them all next to each other. It's not really natural. Always like the example. My dad would say you and he would landscape with shrubbery flowers, things like that. He would never put anything in a row or, you know, geometric, geometric design. But anyway, it very much keeping it to the basics of nature as far as the flow of how many things went next to each other and staggering. And so think about that. Think about first strokes being staggered and not in a straight line. And I'm just going to edge along here just to kinda give a finished look. Little bit of a shadow. Think that's pretty good for the, for the feet hat further feet. Get it. I know. I know. I know I'm cheesy. No, no, those two. Alright, so I'm going to let that be. We're going to finish up details in the last video. We're going to go ahead and swing over to the face, and I'll show you how to accomplish that. And then we'll tackle the fun leaf. So let's get ready to work on the face. 8. Face: Okay, let's get in here and work on the face. We're going to start with a little bit of that neutral tent. And then I kinda mark off some areas and then do a wet on wet demonstration. Okay. So with the star, we've got deeper sections on either side. It's a face. We've got these dark little eyebrow areas, which is why I kind of did a little bit outlining. I've got a little bit here and then of course, the edges follow to the little snout area because they're up higher nerve reflecting light. So I'm just going to pull some strokes up on the way. And then a few through here. And of course was I wrote very much darker. But again, I'm just wanting and just wanting to use this neutral tend just to kinda give me some direction. So like where I've got these tiny little marks is where I know this is all going to be really deep, deep dark black. So I'm just kind of blocking off some color areas. And even above the nose here there's a little bit of the fur. Agonists can a sweeping hairs wanted to stick out just a little bit. Same thing here. You've got like those little little whisker areas. So you can just kinda tap the brush. I'm using the side of the brush. And coming over here. Should be up and I a dark area over here. And then here and then were a lot of these areas you're going to be is just we're going to fuzz out with that carbon black. Now I am going to go ahead and get a little bit of the carbon for the eyebrows. Just gonna go ahead and dark in that. Again, don't be afraid to snag and good chunk of pigment onto your brush is cast fill in that area. So what I like about this little pop-up, little Oscar pup. He's very cute. Little saves the eyebrows. It really is, but it's dark because of how high the little ridges right above that section go and that's what's reflecting the light. So when it's lower, it's catching more shadow. And I'm just kinda have swinging over here, deepening some those colors to get ready for our what on what technique. And again, just kind of go around. Feel where you want to put some guidelines in a way. With the snout. You've got the hair kinda basically is gonna go up the middle. But as it goes towards each eye, it's going to, it's the direction on the snout area is gonna go towards the eye. So like you've actually got some little, some little sprigs right here that go towards the eye, in the middle of the forehead. And this now you're going to have these little hairs that go up and out just a tad. So it's kind of like a little arrow. Again, just giving yourself some direction. Remember, always be kind to yourself when it comes to painting. Because for some of you this is new and experimental and just have fun with it. Now, what I did up there, I kinda wanted to go ahead and give myself a little line. As I just deepened, I just added a little line there and then I get my brush wet just a little bit and I kind of brushed along the edge and it brought the pigment down into that what section? That's basically what I did there. Ok. So from here, we're going to go ahead and just add water to us, clear water. And don't be afraid to address. Sorrell it on around. Didn't get it all the way around. Now because this face is smaller than some of the tutorials I've done. I'm gonna go ahead and get the whole face wet. Typically if it's bigger, I would suggest doing a half and half and then blending the two as you go. It's just a little easier because one side it'll start to dry before you get to the other side and then you might get frustrated. So my suggestion would be just to do half and half if the face is much bigger, this is a fairly small face, so we're gonna go ahead and just get that what I'm going to leave this snout area dry for now because we are going to add some deep pigment and grab some of carbon. If your, if your paper is very saturated, that paint is going to take off. Just su, you know, what's going to happen? Have fun with it. And I feel like if you wanna get experimental, get experimental. Yeah, a little bit of a dark here. The top of the foreheads got some highlight to it. We've got the eyebrows. You can kind of bring these things together if you'd like. Sometimes you might find that you like the look of those big patchy highlight areas. Going to bring a little bit here. Just cohesive art now. Snacks and that black wash or to go into the edge here of the face. Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap up above the eyebrow. And again, this is the cool part about this paint doesn't really go too far, which is great. For like you need some more load that brush backup, tap, tap, tap, and bring that color up, up, up, up. There's gonna blend them, fade these in just a little bit. And again, I'm just kind of a tapping method. And then he's got smooth, deep tone up here to the top of the head. Alright, now, add some of that pains into here. No, no, try something. I'm gonna grab some of those whitewash. I'm going to go along the edge here. Let me see if I can preserve that light area right there. So I can go ahead and come in here and blend in with the rest of the face. Ok, it's gonna pull some that pigment into the snout, which is perfectly fine. Ok, that actually worked. So I'm gonna grab some carbon to screen up, pull some color around the nose and around the bottom edge. And then where those little where we have the lines, you can just kind of follow those. And then a little bit of the flu can actually kinda dab that along the edge there. And it's going to push. The pigment back out. So it actually works out really well. And you can just tap the damp paper to kinda move things around a little bit. If you want to add in some highlights, like I really think I need to add, maintain a little bit up here above the eye. And then there's like a little section, each on either side there across the forehead. And then you can kind of manipulate where those little patches go. She can see how how like fuzzed out That is I really like that here. Okay, that is the gist of doing the wet on wet section. I'm gonna let this dry and then we'll go back in with some deep black wash. Okay, so now I'm gonna go in and add some details with the black wash. You can go between a light gray or a DPP tone up. Washed those move around quite a bit. So don't feel like if you get it down in one spot, you've, you've doomed everything. If you feel like it wasn't a good place to add some lines. It's very movable. Let's put it that way. Okay, so I'm just trying to give some shape to these little eyebrows. Instead of them just being a little blobs, which is kind of gently adding little sprigs, I guess, to the edge. And just taking it like down, downward stroke is how I work a lot. Same thing over here is just pulling down. And that will come with practice. But just constantly paying attention to your reference photo in the direction that you want the for to go. And then just add small sections to indicate where the firm is going. That's kinda my general rule. You can go further with it. That's perfectly fine. And I've seen many artists that fill in their art work with beautiful amounts of hair. And for, and it's beautiful. However, it takes time and a lot of patients. And for what I want to achieve and don't necessarily need to do that. And I don't necessarily feel like I need to do that. So therefore, I do not. But just know that's an option. So if you wanted to continue adding strokes, continue adding them. If that is your thing. Go for. Again, just kind of tapping the edge of my brush. But over time I come down on this other side here. Deeper, deeper black. Again, just that following the motion for if you need a few like practice wipes, just like go over it without actually touching the paper. Almost like a golf swing. You want to just get the feel before you swings anything with baseballs, syncing with any type of thing that you're about to do. Just get, just get a rhythm. Find that rhythm first, and then go from there. Okay, and again, just constantly looking at your reference. If this is a pet, maybe a family dog or a friend's dog that you want to paint. It's a black Lab or just a black dog. And general same principles apply. And then you get to decide how far you want to take it. Alright, we are continuing with those little line marks here. Just to deepen edge of this face, kinda put it more in a shadow. Who's following my guideline? K. And really you're just doing this until you feel good about the shape and the depth of everything that you've got? Okay. And like I said, the snout sticking up further so I'm not really going to deepen that too much. You can always take this much darker. However, this is just kinda where we're leaning. I'm going to leave the edges of the snout light. I'm gonna go in here and just deepen this just a little bit. Again, just kind of following what feels good for you. I'm going to ask swing and hears out a little bit in more depth to the middle area here. Okay. That looks pretty cute to me. So I think we're gonna leave it there and we're going to finish it out with some details in our final video. So let's move onto our maple leaf. 9. Leaf: Okay, we are ready to dive into the maple leaf section. This is going to be super fun. I hope that you will find this as much fun as I do. So what we're gonna do is get the entire leaf wet, nice and saturated. Okay? Once you have this nice and saturating, you're gonna want to work quickly. First step is we're going to grab some of that orange tone. And remember, these colors can just be simply the colors that you have. Man's maple leaf. So really red and orange and yellow is what you're looking for. So we're just gonna go through here and just tap different areas with some of this orange color. Same with the yellow, Same with the russet color. It's the quinacridone, Scarlet. They think it's called Lucky Penny and they changed it to a quinacridone color, but it's like a really deep russet color. So you can make some brown and red together to create that tone as well. Okay? But I want you to have fun with this, so don't, you know, don't overthink the leaf coming in with that deep red tone. I'm just going to follow along some of that remaining and then where the mouth is to just tap, tap, tap or drag. Tap, tap, tap or drag. If you want a little bit of extra red on the tip, feel free to get creative. And even if you went out and found a leaf, depending on what time of year it is, you could just kind of pattern the colors from that does not have to me exact. And we can kinda clean up the edges to Vigo outside of it. You can always add a dark color to the outside and actually have a parallel line. Violet I'm going to throw in here, last, going to take a little bit of the Van Dyke and the French Gray, I believe. If you want your stem to be not so orangey. Just a little bit of the orange color doesn't have to be an exact color. Just to add a little bit of depth. You could even take a little bit of that. Van Dyke and dot it here and there onto the leaf. Okay, parenting is coming. Next. It's my favorite color. Just following what you feel is good. You can follow some of those, those vein lines. Kinda add a little depth. I'm going to add a little bit more of the rest that color the lucky penny, just because I love it so much. Okay, now the fun part, I've got just a little bit of some plane table salt and using a take some, just add it to all areas. You can get more and other areas than some, some just kinda spread out a little bit tighter. Just have fun with it. Don't stress. Okay, once you have your salt on there, sit back, relax and watch the magic happen. The salt should be pulling up your pigments. It's gonna leave little starburst effects and some really pretty texture in general, just in these areas where the salt is sitting. So just enjoy and we're gonna cut back in just a moment. Wanted that completely dry. Once this is dry, fill free to swing in the little flecks of salt off. If you ever find that your salt is stuck on their really well, just grab like a little plastic ruler and you can just scrape it over the top. And it works really nicely. Just make sure your leaf is completely dry before you go to rub off your salt. Otherwise you're going to sling pigment everywhere. Okay, now that we have not complete, we can go in and add just a little bit extra details to this leaf. So you can mix the two colors, the russet in this purply violet together to create a little bit of a darker tone, which I kinda wanna take. And just do a little bit of some of the brush. And then I'll take my white gel pen and kinda follow those lines as well. Just kind of taking the paint where you want it to go. If you want to kind of sharpen up some of those edges. Feel free to do that. Use a little bit of this pin here and when the highlight of the stem. And then take this along the edge of some of those vein marks. And I made the cool thing about this particular gel pen is you can manipulate it with some water. So if you feel like, oh, I put a line, right? It really wanna line. Just take a little bit of water on your brush and you can just move it around or erase it in a way. Lost it enter the leaf. Members cannot bring that pack. Same thing here. Kind of what the tip of this and with this gel pen you can go over the top of it with a color. So like a like a yellow, like a really pretty yellow on top would make it more subtle. I think that's a very huge cure to leaf. Okay. We are done with the maple leaf. We're gonna move on to our final details. And then we will add a shadow in that final detail video where I've kinda got a little line work going on. See you in the next video. I'll be here, you won't see you, but thank you. 10. Details and Shadows: Let's add the final details on this pub. We're going to include our shadow in this part as well. But I just want to show a few things with the two pencils that I had picked out, watercolor pencils, we're just going to use a black and white and then a little bit of our gel pen as well. So we're going to start with the white just because I enjoy using the white lots. So I'm looking at my photo and where I'm seeing any kind of brightness. I just want to take and just compliment those areas. We're gonna take a damped brush over the top of this once it's done. So you can kind of just take it anywhere. You, you think there's going to be a highlight. You were where there's like little sprigs of hair. I enjoy using this pencil for. You'll notice when it goes over the black Wash, it's almost like a chalk effect. Gets really cool. I enjoy it quite a lot. Actually. You should be able to see how it's just kinda of brightening up areas. Just tap, tap, tap. And you can kind of take bigger, thinner strokes if you want to. Bigger section. It's got a little cute little fuzzy areas right down here on the edge of the eye. And in even though it kinda looks like a bad colored pencil job, I'm going to go over the top of that and it's gonna be very subtle. Then I'm going to go over the top of that with a wet brush or a damp brush because they don't want it actually to me solid wet and want to just have some dampness in it so that we can manipulate the highlights. And then if you feel like your pencil is getting to know your handy dandy pencil sharpener and get a nice sharp edge. It's pencils are great for whiskers as well. However, I think we're just gonna use the pencil for today for this little pop. And you can't even come in here and add a little fuzzy whiskers until the snout here. Come here. We'll open the line for the ear. A little bit of light here. Will springs over here. Same thing here. You can actually go in and add some markings here. Subversion or continue here. You can take over the tops of those little pause here. Again, whatever direction you think feels good to you. In the same way, we're going to take the black and deepen some areas. Here. Actually want this to be a bit darker. And we go on the edge of that leaf there. Just really wherever you feel like needs some attention. That's typically my assessment when I am doing final details on a pet portrait. I'm just looking around trying to decide, okay, do I want some colored here? Do I need some depth here? Because anything you need to be clarified as far as a detail. How stylized Do you want to make it? All these things are questions that I asked myself. When wrapping up a pet portrait. Just kinda, I'm an edge person. I like to finish edges and I'm not really sure why. So I just like to have a finished can go in and Tony for marks here. And just remember this is not your complete final outlook. So just because you've done one thing with the pencil doesn't mean that's the way it has. And define those eyebrow level. Get this area a little darker here. Kind of match up with area. A few little springs. Here can have a little bit more of an edge there. If you want to add a little bit of a shadow here. Actually, I can add a little bit just like that. Because And we'll take our brushing, run it over the tops of that. For this pin I want to take and highlights back in to the eye and I'm going to add, the whites. Are gonna go in and add, can add dots, you can add lines. Just like to create that little burst of color. A little burst of highlight underneath areas that catch light on the nodes. And take that black watercolor pencil on. Finish out the nose area here. Okay. Take my brush. And I'm just going to start to gently sweep over areas that I added pencil two. Scenarios might need a little more attention than others. It's kinda learned. Process. Pencil, you just wanna know gently. Blend in areas can go straight over and it might leave a streak up and over. And just gives it a nice soft look. And you can certainly leave it. You do not have to do this step. You can just leave it as it is. This is just something I like to do. And it kinda blends in with the rest of everything. Once you go back over those watercolor pencil lines, it's, it creates a matte finish versus the kind of shiny like when you push down on a colored pencil really hard on paper. That kind of an effect. And then just touching up wherever you think needs some attention. Our little pups ligand, mighty cute. Alright, Oskar has got some crazy little whiskers. So we're just going to add a couple here. Up here. That's my eyebrow whiskers. Got some whiskers it go out. Just very subtle. I don't like whiskers to be like a hey, how you doing type of thing in a pet portrait. And if you see little things you feel like you want to address, go for it. And one thing I'm seeing what I could do is there's a little dip since he's beaten down on a leaf. Can add a little bit of a shadow here. Alright, and take just a little bit of the neutral tint and little bit of that shadow. When you can grab some your color tone if you feel like it just needs to be a darker version of what you have on the leaf already. I don't like that. Alright, let's add in that shadow real quick to the base. And then I think we're gonna be sent its Lunar Violet is the colour and it's got granular setting properties. So it's a really pretty tone that's purple, some purples and it just really pretty. So you'll notice as you start to get this area wet and feel free to not follow the circularly align thing I decided to go with. You can use whatever type of shadow base you want. I just thought it was just kind of a nice shape and make decisions that made me happy. So that's, that's what OLS you'll notice as you're getting your water added, that anywhere that's you added, the watercolor pencil is going to fade out, is the bit that is perfectly fine. So he even wanted to go heavier on the pigment. You could just do that for your shadow and just tap the edge so that the color falls into the area and it will start to soak in really quickly. So just keep working your way around until your papers nascent, saturated. Okay. Now I'm going to add my deepest pigment up underneath where the little belly is. I'm gonna come over here, grab that lunar tap, tap, tap, tap and spread my method. And you can use some carbon black as well if you really want to show like a shift in color as far as I just falling. That would be kinda neat to see a little bit of that. It should push that lunar out of the way just a little bit. And you can even tip, you can tip your paper up if you want the pigments to fall in your color really can't go anywhere because water has skin. Therefore, it can't exit this little circle that I've made. But I am pretty happy with that. So and it's not, I don't feel like it's too dark. Again, experiment this shadow. You could do a background. You could add any color, you could do a green, you could do purple. You do really whatever you feel like doing. And I do have a background class you could check out to help you kind of decide what colors to use. And yeah, I think that is going to do it for our cute little Oscar, the black lab tutorial. Congratulations and thanks everyone. 11. Thanks and Share Your Project!: Congratulations, you've just finished your watercolor painting of Oscar, the black dog holding a cute maple leaf. So I hope you have fun. I did have fun teaching you how to accomplish this. Remember, feel free to explore anything you want with this. Add more. Don't do as much. You can do an entire background on entire background, totally up to you. So I want to see your projects in the class projects area. Please post those. I will be on the lookout. If you want feedback, please let me know and I'll be happy to give you feedback on your painting. If it's a painting of a dog that you're just wanting to paint that's happened to be black or even a deep brown color post-doc to this class two, because you're using the principles from the class to achieve your own painting. So I'll be glad to look those over for you. If you have any questions, feel free to ask those in the discussion and I will get back with you as soon as I can. So I hope you had fun if you haven't already, be sure to hit that follow button so you can be up-to-date on the current classes and you'll be the first to know when I do post a new class. Thanks for joining. I hope you had a good time and we will see you next class.