Watercolor Pet Portraits: Bernese Mountain Dog

1. Intro: Hello, and welcome. My name is Emily, and I am the artist behind Emily Marie Watercolors. Welcome to my home studio here in Madison, Wisconsin. In this tutorial, you'll learn to paint Tiga the Bernice Mountain Dog, using watercolors. As a watercolor artist, I have found a passion for painting pet portraits. If you already know the basics of watercolor, painting pet portraits can be a great way to turn your hobby into a part time or even full time career. My style is characterized by adding details to the mouth, nose, and eyes, but not getting caught up in painting every single hair or curl. Included in this tutorial is a color reference photo of Tiga the Bernice Mountain Dog, as well as a black and white template that you can use to trace the outlines instead of sketching it on your own. After explaining the supplies you'll need for this tutorial, I'll guide you through painting Tiga layer by layer. I'll show you a combination of real time video and time lapses so that you can see the whole process from start to finish. We'll end with adding a colorful splash behind our dogs and finishing our piece up using a black micron pen. As an added bonus, I've even included a quick guide with step by step pictures so that you have an easy way to see how all these layers come together. So grab your supplies, and let's get ready to paint. Don't forget to upload any questions that you have, and I'll try my best to answer them along the way. Let's get started. 2. Supplies: Alright, so let's start off by talking supplies that you'll need for this tutorial. The very first thing that you'll need is, of course, paper. So in your resources guide, you can find in a black and white outline of Tiger, the Bernese Mountain dog. I recommend that you if you're going to trace it using a tracing light or a window that you printed out on a regular sized sheet of paper, and then tape it behind your watercolor paper, you can either then face it on the window and trace what you see or on your light box. Otherwise, you can always use the template and use an online device app like DaVinci I to trace them using your phone. Once you have that, we can talk about paper choice for watercolor paper. So I do like using arches hot pressed paper for my pet portraits. I like using the hundred 40 pound paper, and I usually buy arches hot pressed in this A three size block. And then what I'll do is I will cut them, cut each page into 28 by tens. So this is our eight by ten sheet. Now, I like using hot press paper for my pet portraits because it's easy to sketch on, and so I like to use it for tracing my fine lines and outlines. I also prefer hot press if I'm going to use any sort of black outliner pen at the very end. And if I'm doing something intricate like whiskers and using a calligraphy pen for masking my whiskers, it's usually easier to do that on a hot press paper versus a cold press. If you do prefer working on a cold pressed paper, you are more than welcome. Just know that you might have a few more challenges because of the rougher texture of your paper. Alright, so let's talk brushes. So for your brushes, you can choose whatever round size brush that you prefer to work with at home. The brushes that you'll see me use in this tutorial are black velvet brushes by Silver Limited. I'm using either size four or a size six for the majority of my tutorial. I will also use a slightly smaller size of this black velvet. So I have a size zero for when I'm doing some of my fine detail in the eye area. All of them are round brushes. Like I said, you can choose whatever brand that you like to use and that you have at home. Just try to keep it somewhere in between that two to eight or two to six size brush. Then we'll look at to prep your paper. So when we are prepping our paper with masking fluid, I like using Windsor and Newton masking fluid. I do show you in this tutorial how to use a nib on a calligraphy brush with your masculine fluid. You might need to mix a little water, just a few drops of water in to get it watery enough. And if you do not have a calligraphy pen and you don't like using masking fluid, you are more than welcome to use a white guash after you paint for the whiskers or the white highlights of the eyes. I recommend a bleed proof wife white from doctor PH Martin. Now, if you're doing whiskers, I do recommend using a rigor brush. This is also known as a script brush. It'll give you a really nice, fine line, but also enough liquid. It'll hold enough liquid on here for those nice long whiskers. Similarly, at the end of the tutorial, you'll see me using a black micron pen. I'm using a size three. You can use a size two. This is just to add some of the extra dark details around the eye section. And then, of course, in order to paint, you will need a cup of water. Sometimes I like working with two cups of water in case one gets too dirty, then I can switch it out right away, and I don't have to worry about running to the sink. You'll also need a paper towel or a clean cloth that we'll use for lifting and for drying off our brush. Alright, so after you have your template traced onto your watercolor paper, you might want to think about taping it down onto a flat surface. In the tutorial, I am using this plastic corrugated board. I just found this at Michael's. It's a plastic corrugated poster board size that I cut into workable sections. And then I did tape my paper down onto this corrugated plastic. I used green frog tape in the tutorial, so the brand name is frog tape. You can also use other tapes. There's a really good watercolor tape called Kiwi Hub, and it's white. You can find it on Amazon. That one is also a really good one. I tend to use either frog tape or that white kiwi hub tape. Instead of blue painter's tape, I find it doesn't rip off onto my paper quite as easily as the blue painter's tape. Alright, and last, let's talk about our colors or water colors that we'll use for this tutorial. I am using all Daniel Smith colors around the outside of my palette. I do have some pans from a company called Art Philosophy. However, I do have kind of their equivalent in Daniel Smith. And so let's talk about the colors that we use. You can find a full color palette for painting Tiga in the resources section below this video. On the left hand side, I have the name of the pigment that I used in the tutorial. And underneath in parentheses are some possible substitutions. If you don't have that color at home, the color is shown in the center, and then on the right hand side, it answers the question of where is this color used? So you can kind of peek at this before we get started just to have an idea about where you're going to be seeing the colors throughout the tutorial. Lastly, before we get started, I do suggest that you take a peek at the step by step quick guide that's included in the resources tab below this video. It's just a few different pictures along the process of painting Taiga. And it'll really give you a sense of where we start and where we finish and how we get there. It'll just kind of get your brain thinking of the different layers before you watch the video. 3. Applying your Masking fluid: So the first step that we need to take before we start painting is to apply masking fluid to the whiskers and to the highlights of the eyes. It might be helpful for you to practice this step, especially if you're using a calligraphy pen. So I sometimes will like to water down my masking fluid with a little bit of water before I try this out with my calligraphy pen. And I do want to test it on a scratch sheet of paper first. I might need to take some of that masking fluid off with a paper towel and then redo it every once in a while just because it tends to dry a little bit quicker on that calligraphy pen. But when I use this pen, it gives me some really nice, fine lines. You can also use other things afterwards. If you don't want to use masking fluid, I'll talk about those in a little bit. When you are done with your calligraphy pen, just make sure that you clean off the nib really nice and well with a paper towel, just to keep it nice for the next time you want to use it. And then I'm going to switch to an old brush for the white highlights of the eyes. You could also use your calligraphy pen, though, for this stage, too, if you would like, remember that if you are using a brush to add any masking fluid to your painting, make sure that you're using an old brush that you don't care if it gets ruined by the masking fluid. There are tips out there that people swear by, like putting some soap on your brush to let it dry before you use the masking fluid, and then it's easier to wash off. I just end up using a really bad brush all the time, and I just that's the only brush I use for my masking fluid. So here in the eye section, all I'm going to add that masking fluid too is to the white of the eye, a little bit in the inside corner of the eye. And then I did add just a little tiny bit of masking fluid underneath the eye on that eyelid that's underneath the eye. That also is optional for you, though. If you prefer to keep that open just with paint, you wouldn't have to add masculine fluid in that section. And then I'll come down and I'll mask the teeth. Now, for the teeth, the two large canines on either side, I do want to mask those individually. The little mini teeth in the front here, I can connect those teeth. Remember that if you just add little dots in those teeth in the front and you don't connect the teeth, any black from the lip there is going to show through. So check out your reference photo and see if you want any black lines in between your teeth or if you'd prefer to connect them and kind of have more one long white highlight instead of individual teeth. 4. First layer of Iris, tongue, nose and mouth: Alright, so now for the watercolors section, we're going to start with our lightest colors first. So for that, I always like to paint the irises of the eyes and the tongues first. Right now I'm mixing some water into a color by art philosophy. It's called maple. You can also use quinacridone burnt orange for this or any other brand of burnt orange. Of course, I had to make sure that my masking fluid was dry because I'm going to be painting on top of that masking fluid. And when I paint my first layer of wet on dry, afterwards, I will drop in a little bit more concentrated pigment, just to get that maple color dark enough. Now I'm not worrying about painting around the section of the pupil of the eye because, remember, I can always add that black layer on top. So now that the iris color is done, I'll move on to the tongue. I'm mixing quinacromgenta with some water. Any magenta color will work well, although I find quinacrido magenta is kind of my go to color for tongues and any pinks in the ears. I do want it watered down because same thing, I'll be painting the first layer wet on dry and then dropping in some more concentrated pigment at that top of the tongue, where it enters into the mouth, just to give it a little bit of darkness. Before it dries, I'll lift up a little bit of color along the tip of the tongue there. If your color has dried too quickly, you're not allowed to lift any highlights from the tip of the tongue, don't worry about that. You can always lift once the entire tongue is dry just by re wetting your brush and scrubbing at the end of that tongue just slightly. We'll move on to the first layer of the nose. So I've mixed a water down shadow violet. So this is a warm gray color. It is a granulating color, which I do like. So some of the grains of the pigment are going to naturally separate. You're going to see different colors within this pigment. And what I my goal for the first layer of the nose is to just get a base layer, leaving the highlights a little bit lighter and um adding dropping in a little bit of darker color if I'm able to. But for sure, trying to keep those highlights open. So you notice at the top of the nose there, I left I completely left that open, and now I'll go back and pull. I'll lift up some highlights from underneath the nostrils. Usually, when you take a peek at dog noses, you'll notice immediately under the nostril is lighter in color. So I like to lift that instead of leave it open just because I don't want those hard edges under the nostrils like that. So lifting tends to leave softer edges. Alright, so now I'll remix my colors so that the colors don't separate, and I'll look back at that highlight in the top of the nose. I'll start by giving it a little bit of texture. So around the outer edge of that highlight, I'm going to dot some of that shadow violet around the outer edge. Now, you might notice as you're doing this that the color might look a lot darker. That's because the first layer that you painted has started to dry. We will kind of blend that out. So what you'll notice me doing in the rest of this video is my brush will be going down towards where my paper towel is, and I'm I'm actually removing some of the liquid each time my brush moves down. And what that does is it softens up then that edge because I'm using less pigment with each pass. So I'll continue to kind of work on it, making sure to preserve that highlight, but also making sure that I give it a little bit of texture. Now, we'll move on to the first layer of the mouth of that dark area of the mouth. I'm adding a little bit more shadow violet to my color just to make it a little bit more opaque. And I'm making sure that the tongue, the pink of the tongue is dry. So I'll start out on one side of the mouth, either side. My goal here once again, is to just lay down some of that pigment and to preserve the highlights. So I notice on this right side of the mouth there's a few highlights in that black area. I'm going to try to preserve a little a few of those highlights just because the mouth area is large enough to do so. If I were painting this in a five by seven, instead of an eight by ten, I would not have the space to preserve those highlights, or instead, I might try lifting the highlight instead of leaving it open. So it really all depends on the size that you're working and how much detail you really want to add to your portrait. If you don't have the chance to leave these highlights open, it's not going to worsen the quality of your painting. I'll pull that shadow violet all the way over to the other side of the mouth. I am painting all the way up to the teeth. In fact, I'm painting on top of the masking fluid to make sure that all the curves there of the teeth that dark color goes in between those curves. I'll come up to the left side and I'll do the exact same thing on the left side of this mouth. And now I know it's a little bit more challenging to see exactly where the mouth ends because with the reference photo, that side of the mouth is actually quite dark. I am basically guessing. I'm using the right side as a guide, so it's going to be about the same height, since the face isn't tilted at all. And I also can tell that there's a little bit of brown. And so that's kind of the edge of the mouth that I can notice. Now, if the tongue is dry, you can continue to pull that shadow violet up into the mouth on top of the pink. If the pink of the tongue is not dry enough yet, I would wait and do this step later on when you're doing the first layer of fur. So here, for the tongue, as you can see, I want to make sure to emphasize that dark triangle in the mouth and that it's also kind of coming to a point where that center line in the tongue is. I am reminding myself, though, that this is not my darkest layer that I will go back and I will add more layers after this. This is just to help me place colors where they need to go. With the lower lip of all of our dogs that we paint, there tends to be a little hot dog shape of highlight on that lip. So at the very top of that hot dog shape highlight, you're going to have your dark colors, and at the bottom, it's going to be dark as well. So I left that highlight and now I'm grabbing a little bit of water. I'm tapping the excess water off of my brush because I don't want a soaking wet brush. And then I am softening up that edge of the highlight. I'll lift up any sort of pigment if it went all over the place, because I don't need it to be a bright white highlight, but I also don't want it to be a hard edge. 5. First layer of Gray, Part 1: So now we are starting with the first layer of fur. So this step is obviously going to be a lot longer than the first few steps. For any sort of multi colored dogs, I do like to start with whatever color is more predominant. So with any sort of black and brown dogs, whether you're painting a Rottweiler or a Bernese Mountain Dog, I do strongly suggest that you start with the black fur first, and then you add your colored sections of orange. Simply because if you start with your orange first, I've noticed with myself and with any of my students that we tend to add too much pigment with the orange and our orange has become too dark. And so we then have to overcompensate and have our blacks go even darker. If we start with our blacks, we can still maintain those nice highlights, and then we can gradually add some orange to the sections that we leave open. Um, I have mixed right now a shadow violet with quite a bit of water because, of course, my first layer needs to be nice and transparent and it's extremely watery. So I'm starting in sections. I'm starting on this left ear, and my goal here is not to have any sort of um, fur strokes. So I'm not painting individual fur. I'm getting down the solid color first. Now, of course, I do need to paint individual fur strokes when I come to the edge of the ear. So as you notice, I'm trying to paint some little wispies where I see them on my reference photo. And as I'm looking at my reference photo, of course, I am kind of painting fur like strokes, but you'll notice that they're all connecting, really. The only sections that I'm going to leave open and where I'm not gonna fill it with color are any sections where I need to add orange on top. So the section that I notice where there's the most amount of orange is this middle section of the ear here. And so I'm going to paint all of my strokes kind of at this diagonal. I'm keeping them light, but I'm also keeping a little bit of white from the paper kind of shining through. And then before it dries, I can go back and kind of edit and see, did I leave too much room? Do I need to close any of those white spaces off, or does it look good the way that it is? I'm also not trying to paint too large of a section at once, because I obviously with watercolors, it dries very quickly. And so I'm doing my best to kind of work in sections. Now, of course, as I come to the section where the black and white fur connect the white fur on the chest, I am going to have to paint negatively here. So I'm keeping my color very watered down. And I'm using these up and down brush strokes. So I'm moving my hand both up and down. And I'm trying to add a little bit of shape. This neckline area. Now, I know that there's a bandana covering that section in the reference photo. The client did send me an additional picture. So I'm using that second picture to kind of get a little bit more shape to the lower left ear there. And so the only section that I'm really focused on adding these little wispy hairs is going to be on the edges. So the outer edge and the inner edge. So knowing where to stop that hair line in your painting, when you're only painting, the bust of your dog can be a little challenging. When your dog is looking at you straight on, like Taiga is looking at us straight on. And also when there's a white section to the chest, I tend to make the chest area a little triangular, so it'll come to a downward point. And that point is going to mimic the smile and open mouth. So as you notice, I kind of left that left side of the body, angling in at a downward angle. And I'm going to do the same thing on the right side, angle that down and in. So it comes to a nice triangular point. Alright. We'll do the same thing on this right side. Remember that we're using a very watered down shadow violet, and we're only focusing really on adding some of these wispy hairs along the edges of the ears and chest, along the outer edge, and then along the inner edge. And the section that I want to keep white for the paper is going to be that little chunk of brown that you see kind of in the middle of the ear. Alright. Well, I'm looking at my reference photo and my painting. I'm noticing that it's feeling a little lopsided. It almost feels like there's more black fur on the left side versus the right side. And so I'm going to try to curve out this right side a little bit more. So I don't think I came in quite far enough. Even if I did come in far enough, um, occasionally, I do make little corrections like this just to keep a painting even enough. And so I'm still keeping this little fluff of white hair, but I'm kind of decreasing the fluff a little bit. So I'm trying to balance out the painting just a little bit more. Most of the time, when clients send us reference photos, they are not perfect. And especially with long hair dogs, some of these hairs are going in every which direction. And so sometimes as artists, we can take little um, little steps like this, just to make the painting, overall, a little bit more pleasing to look at. 6. First layer of Gray, Part 2: Alright, I mixed up a little bit more of that shadow violet with water, and I'll start on now this left side of the face above the eye. And here's where I'm going to have to keep my brush pretty light when I get to the section where the gray is touching the white. I am going to have to paint negatively here, and this is where more than the ears, more than the neck this section here is where you really want to be careful that this first layer of color that you lay down is truly a watered down gray. If you have too dark of this first layer, particularly where the black fur meets up with the white fur, it's going to have too much contrast between that white and black. And so having more transparent gray here is really going to help. Oh Alright, so I'm going to continue painting along this upper arch above that orange eyebrow. Now, when I have too much pigment on my brush and I'm getting close to this section of fur that has white in it, I might touch my brush to my paper towel, and that's going to release a little bit of the pigment just so that I have a lighter amount of color to paint this edge between that's running along the white. So right now, I'll grab a little bit darker of pigment since I'm going closer to the inside. Then I'll continue doing the same thing. I'll dab my brush to release some of that darkness and paint some of the lighter tones towards the center. Now, once I get to this section just above the eye where this orange eyebrow is, I'm going to treat that orange section as if it were white. So I don't want to add any sort of shadow on top of that. And I also want to make sure that my edges are don't have a crazy amount of contrast to them. So if you can see right now, I trying to give that general arch shape first, and then coming all the way to the eye, and everything else just gets one solid coat of gray, particularly on this left hand side, which is so dark. I'll continue painting under the eye. Once again, I am just making sure that my brush strokes are following the shape of the hairs, particularly around the muzzle here. So I'm kind of arching and curving these hairs that are coming into the bridge of the nose and then rounding them around the muzzle there. And then once again, on this left hand side, just by where the smile line is, I'm noticing a little bit more orange. And so I'll try to keep a little bit of paper space there to leave some of that paper open so that I can drop in a layer of orange later on. Alright, we'll paint it the same way on the right side of the face. I'm going to speed up this process in a second here because the thing that I just want you to focus on is kind of the shape of my brush strokes and how it lightens wherever it connects to the white fur. Now, one last thing before we continue on, I do want to make notice that this first layer of color is not going to be uniformly even. So there might be sections where it's a little darker. You might be able to see brush strokes, and that's okay because remember, this is the first layer. So part of why we paint a first layer of color underneath what's meant to be darker is yes to leave that color for highlights, but also to train our brains to understand kind of where these colors are laid and how the hairs are falling around the head. And so it's not going to be a perfect layer and just know that you know, this first layer, all those imperfections might bother you, but know that we are going to be adding layers on top. 7. Painting the White Fur: Let's move on to painting the white fur. In order to paint white fur, I like to dilute the shadow violet that I'm using with quite a bit of water. The consistency that I'm looking for is going to be mainly just dark enough to stain the paper. I want it to be light enough that, um, I can easily take it off with a paper towel if I add a shadow in a spot that I suddenly don't think it looks good there anymore. And so I have my shadow violet really watered down, and I'm painting it very sparsingly in the white area. I want to avoid trying to make that white fur look muddy. And so I only added a little hint of shadow at the top triangle of the forehead. And now I'm adding a little bit of darker shadows around the bridge of the nose, particularly on the top of the nose here. And then I'm noticing where these white furs are coming out of the little corner of the eyes. And so I'm adding a little bit more shadow there and kind of touching it up, making it blend into that dark for a little bit better. Now, if you don't have shadow violet at home, you can always use whatever gray color that you used for the black of the fur and just water it down a little bit more. The reason why I'm using the same color is I do want some color harmony in my painting. So because I'm using the same color, it's automatically going to connect the painting. If I were to mix my own a whole new gray for the white of the fur, it might not connect as well with the black fur. So I'll continue adding some lighter shadows along the outer edge of the mouth, particularly in that mouth area where the hairs are coming out of the cheeks. Don't forget that you can always wet your brush and lift up any of your shadows that got a little bit too dark by using a wet brush, scrub out that area a little bit, and then use your paper towel, press down and lift up a little bit of that pigment. So as we move on to the chin and the chest, I am switching out the reference photo that I'm using. The client sent me multiple reference photos, but really liked the facial expression in the yellow bandana photo. But since it covers up a lot of the chest and they wanted a painting without that bandana, I'm deciding to use a different reference photo to help me with some of the white fur in the chest area. So when I look at this reference photo, the first thing I notice is that there's a lot of there's a lot going on. There's a lot of shadows. You can see a lot of individual hairs on the chest. And so sometimes when I'm painting, particularly white areas, I like to squint my eyes at the reference photo, and that helps me to pick out where are the darkest shadows. And that's the only space that I'm going to paint. I'm not so if you notice I'm painting kind of these almost triangular little chunks where I see those tufts kind of coming out of the chest area. If I end up doing more more of the lines and the shadows that I see in the reference photo, in my opinion, it ends up just looking like dirty fur. So I do want to be very cautious to leave a lot of that white paper shining through, or otherwise, you run the risk of having your white fur look like they just ran through a mud puddle. Now, as I look back at my reference photo, I notice there's a few sections that are just a little darker than the others. So I'm just going to go in right away and drop in a second layer of that same consistency of shadow violet. So it's just making a few of those little tufts a little bit darker. It seems like most of those tufts have dried. So this is a second wet on dry layer. If certain areas are still wet, that's okay, too. This step you can also leave till later, but I just noticed a few sections needed to be a little darker. Alright, moving back to that original reference photo, I'm taking a peek at the chin now and noticing that there is a little bit darker of tufts coming under the chin. It just kind of helps to separate the chin out a little bit more. So I'm using this first reference photo to help me add a little darker tones to that left side of the chin. Now, this part is a little tedious, but overall, it does make a difference, in my opinion, when you're painting the chin area of particularly pets who have longer hair. So I am going to make some texture in this chin by creating some vertical hash marks that's coming from both the bottom of the chin upward and from that lower lip downward. Now, these little hash marks are just pointing at each other. They're not necessarily connecting all the way. I do want to still leave that highlight in between, but I do want to make an illusion that there are these little hairs that are coming out of the chin. Now, if you have a short haired dog, you might not need to add so much texture in this area. But with the long haired dogs that you can definitely tell that this texture marking in the chin area really does make a big difference. So 8. Painting the White Fur: the Nose Area: Alright, now moving on to the section between the nose and the mouth. I am going to add more shadow violet to that section that I've been using on my palette. I do want it to be a little bit more opaque than what I did for what I used for the white fur. For a lot of dogs, actually, the section between the nose and the mouth right in the center there is where the hairs are going to be the darkest. Now, with Bernie's mountain dogs because they have long hair, I'm using these hash marks, and my hash marks are gonna naturally have more of a diagonal. It's going to follow the curve of that mouth as I go outward. And one other important thing to note is at the lip line where you see I'm painting right now, I don't want my color to extend all the way to the lower to that lip. So I do want a little section of white right where it connects to the tongue. The reason being is if I paint that darkness all the way to where the pink of the tongue is, then suddenly you lose the dimensionality of the lip. So I do need to leave that highlight at the bottom. Now, you notice that where I painted the tongue, I didn't leave any of those white hairs sticking out. I feel that makes my paintings look too busy, and so I'd rather add the texture and the hair in this in between part in between the nose and the mouth, rather than negatively painting those white hair sticking out into the tongue area. You noticed then after I finished painting this little section, I'm obviously doing half at a time. And then before it dries, I did drop in more of that shadow violet directly from the pan, so highly concentrated, closer to the center of that, between the nose and mouth, just to get that center area slightly darker. So 9. Second Layer of Gray, Part 1: So now that we have the first layer done on all sections of our Bernice Mountain dog, now we're going to start on the second layer of the dark fur. So I'm adding a little more shadow violet to this kind of puddle that we've been working with so far. I want to mix more of a medium opacity, still quite watered down, though. And I'm using shadow violet instead of black for my second layer. Simply because I want to continue to add a little bit more warmth to my painting. And so I tend to have my second and third layers be shadow violet if I if I need a third layer of shadow violet, and then the last layer is going to be black. That's just the way that I enjoy adding extra color to my painting. However, if you would rather use a watered down black for the second layer, that is acceptable, as well. Now as I'm looking at my reference photo and deciding where to paint this second layer, I want to first determine where the lightest highlights are. So on this left ear, I'm noticing where those lightest grays are at the tip top of the ear. I do want to keep that first layer shining through. I'm working vertically from top to bottom here, and I'm still filling in certain sections where I'm noticing that the black is extremely dark, but I do want to try to keep those highlights visible. And I also want to try to keep the sections where there's some orange shining through. I still want to keep those sections a little lighter as well. So Now, I personally find that the hardest part about painting pet portraits is figuring out how to section my paintings. So obviously, you need to section them in smaller sections so that you can paint the area before your edge is dry. So here, you'll notice that I'm kind of moving into the face area, that side of the cheek. Because when I look at the reference photo, I'm noticing that there's just a really solid dark area. There's not a very distinct edge between the ear and the cheek, at least in that lower cheek section. And so I don't want a hard edge there. And that's why I'm bringing that second layer over around the eye first. And then I'll continue moving down the edge. So you might notice as I'm painting that I'm there might not be quite a set of rules that I necessarily follow as far as which section I paint first. And sometimes, if I'm noticing a certain section in my reference photo, my hand will just go there and I'll add that little section and then continue moving along. So I'm not doing the full face here, the full left side of the face, but just kind of above the eye there below the eye, and then next to the nose. And after I finish with that section, then I'll continue down the rest of the ear. Now, as I start painting on the left side of the neck area, I do want to note that I am loosely following this other reference photo that my client sent, but I'm also kind of making it up in a certain sense just based off of making the painting flow a little bit better. So on this lower left hand side in the reference photo, you'll notice that some of these hairs are actually kind of pointing outward to the left, and I am creating a little highlight of these hairs that are curving inward. So right now, you're noticing that there's a little bit of, like, almost a C curve, and that curve is following that lower curve that e set of the hair. And what it's doing is it's bringing your eye from the ear down, and it's following that shape of the chest and bringing it down to that point that we made with the white hair. I'm going to do the same thing on the right hand side, and this is just an artistic freedom that I sometimes do in my paintings just based off of what looks visibly pleasing. So once again, Um, if this is something that bothers you and you want the portrait to look exactly like your reference photo, you can definitely make the hairs stick out the way that the reference photo is showing, or you can use your artistic freedom as an artist and kind of give them a brush their hair, if you will, with your paint brush to kind of give it a little bit more of a circular shape so that it looks a little bit more pleasing. Alright, so now I'll move on to the section of this left section of the face that I didn't get to yet, which is right above the eye. I'm starting in the corner inside corner of the eye, as that's the darkest part that I'm noticing on the forehead here. And I do notice that that dark section curves around the eye follows the same curve of the eye, and it also follows the same curve as that orange eyebrow. I'll add a second layer to add a little bit more depth to the section between the nose and the mouth. And I'm looking for where the darkest shadows here. I don't want to blend these out. So once again, I'm using little tiny hash marks and keeping a layer of highlight along the bottom of the lip. 10. Second Layer of Gray, Part 2: Alright. Now I'll take a peek at the mouth, so I'll do a second layer of this shadow violet along some of the darkest sections of the mouth. Of course, around the teeth here. That edge in between the teeth is quite dark. Also, the edge between the tongue and the teeth is also quite dark, and so I'll add another layer of that shadow violet. And then I'll work on the section of the lips in between the nose and the mouth. Alright, so up until now, I've been showing you these videos in real time as I'm painting them. Now for painting this right section of the second layer of the black fur, I am going to slightly speed it up. You'll still be able to see my brush strokes, but it won't be in real time. I'll be slightly sped up. So if you miss certain brush strokes and you're wanting to kind of see where exactly I'm I'm adding those strokes. I would recommend that you rewind the tutorial and rewatch that certain section if it becomes a little too fast for you. However, I'm using the very same techniques that I did for the left side of the face, where I'm still trying to keep some of those lighter highlights of the black fur open, and I'm trying to make my brush strokes follow the curve of the face, around the curve of the eyes, around the curves of the cheeks, and then of course, around the curves of the ears. 11. Black around the Eyes and Nose: Alright. At this stage, I do like to add a little bit more detail to the eyes and nose, simply because we don't have any dark colors in the eyes or nose yet. I am watering down a little bit of lunar black. This is a granulating color that I use for most of my pet portraits instead of something like a lamp black or a different more mat colored black I do like the granulating function of lunar black, especially for fur, but you can use really any black that you have. I am still using my size four brush here. My size four round. If you have a size zero, size one brush that you prefer to use instead for these fine details around the eye, feel free to use that instead. So my black is pretty opaque at this point, although I'm still adding it to water so that I can lift it in case I put it down in the wrong spot. I'm starting by outlining around the eye first, leaving just a little section of white in the inside corner of the eye. And now I'll start painting the pupil of the eye. Most of the time, the pupil of our pet portraits is actually going to touch with the upper eyelid and then that pupil should connect with the highlight that we painted using our masking fluid. So for the second layer of the nose, I actually did switch back to my shadow violet for the second layer of the nose. However, if you had wanted to continue on with that watered down lunar black, you can definitely do this second layer with the watered down lunar black. So for the second layer of my nose, this is the layer that I'm going to define the nostril shape. And so most of the dog nostrils that you will paint, you'll follow this curve around to the left side. It'll curve down and around and loop around. That shape, even if it's not apparent in your reference photo, is what dog noses are going to look like. So I do sometimes edit my reference photos to show that curved shape. Now, along with that nostril, then we'll also define the lower V of the nose. I'll paint and define that lower edge, and I'll also define the little center line down the center of the nose. Just like with the second layer of our black fur on the face and ears, we want to make sure that this second layer of of shadow violet on the nose is slightly more opaque, but still transparent enough. If you're painting at home and you're noticing that it's looking like there's too much contrast between your layers, it probably means that your second layer that you're painting is too opaque and you need to add more water to that layer so that it doesn't have so much contrast. It is really hard to find the right transparency between layers because we do need there to be enough difference in each layer, but we don't want it to be too much of a difference because too much contrast between our layer opacities is going to create a painting that looks off and the layers won't look like they're connecting at all. Alright, moving back to the nose. So I am adding a little bit of texture to the top of the nose. I'm using I'm dotting that nose, giving it a little texture using the edge of my brush, but I'm trying to keep the highlight on the top of the nose clean. I'll define this right nostril, and then the second layer of the nose will be done. 12. Glazing the Orange Fur Patches: So before I add any more black to the regular fur coat, I am going to add those brown patches that you see on your Bernese Mountain dog. The reason being is that I want to make sure that these brown patches blend in seamlessly between the gray and the black. If I were to wait till the end and add the black patches after the black, I might have some brown kind of shining on top of that black, and I want it kind of set inside the fur. So I mixed up a watered down. This is a maple color by art philosophy, but quinocradone burnt orange by Daniel Smith is pretty much the same color. I'm still watering it down, and I am adding my first layer and then dropping in any darker orange where it needs to be a little bit darker. I'm also lifting the edges. I don't want my edges to be really hard edges where it's overlapping with the gray. So I'm drying my brush, and I'm kind of lifting some of those edges and helping it to blend in a little bit better. Alright, I am going to speed up this section. Mainly, I want you to notice where exactly I'm putting this brown. So you'll notice that I'm also layering some of this brown underneath, especially on the left hand side, kind of under the ear where it starts to come to the chest. And even in the white of the chest, I can also see some of these brown undertones. So I do want to layer it in those areas where I see those browns, making sure that I'm not layering over all of the gray because, obviously, most of that gray is going to be turning into black. Once again, you'll see I'm dropping in some darker, more opaque orange when in the sections is already wet in those areas where it's just a little more intensive and orange. Know that this is not the last step. So if my orange is not dark enough, I can always add another layer after my black. This is once again just a way to kind of seamlessly blend in that orange without making it stand out too much. 13. Layer of Black, Part 1: Now we're ready for our first layer of black. Now, this might be the only layer that you paint. You'll notice that this is the only layer of black that I'm gonna paint on the fur. I just might go into a few sections a second time while I'm there and just add a second layer of black just to make it that much darker. The black that I'm using is lunar black. It is a granulating color from Daniel Smith, and you'll notice that I'm still adding water to this black. I don't want to be using black directly from my palette, except for when I need it extremely opaque, like for the centers of the eyes or the center of the nostril. Otherwise, if I'm painting fur and black fur, particularly, at least in larger areas, I'm going to use it mixed with water. I am going to be making sure that I'm leaving those under two layers to shine through in certain areas. So when you see the highlight at the top of the left ear, you can see the lightest highlight and also that middle gray color. And then I'm going to add the black only where I see the darkest shadows. Now, because I already added that orange, I can paint on top of the gray and the orange, and my black is acting as kind of the color that's combining it all together and making it look nice. Now, like I said, I'm still using my reference photo to make sure that my hairs are going in the right direction. However, I'm not trying to paint every single hair that I see. That also means that in the darkest areas, particularly here in the center between the ear and the face, I am not painting individual strands, but I'm painting larger swaths of that black using the large edge of my brush. And then where those black that black fur is then coming into the orange or coming into a lighter gray, that's where then I use the tip of my brush to add then those fur kind of flex and get those fur strokes that are moving in the right direction. And Now, here on the cheek, you'll be able to see why I add that brown that orange brown in between the gray and the black layers because right now I'm using my black and it's still watered down. I have a very light touch. I am going slightly over that brown area, and you notice that that brown is still shining through partially because I'm having a really light touch with my brush, and also partially because I'm using a granulating color. So this black isn't as opaque as, like, a lamp black is. And then when I get to the mouth area, then instead of having a light touch, then I'm going to make sure that I'm loading more paint in those darkest areas of the mouth where it's really dark black. Now, for the eyebrow above the eye, usually the eyebrow, there's a dark kind of emo eyeliner right on top of the eye. So I already have that dark emo eyeliner on top of the eye. I did that earlier. Then above that Emo eyeliner, there's kind of a tuft of highlight where there's this kind of eyebrow. And so that tuft the highlight, I do want to leave with that lighter shade of gray. And then on the inside of the eye, it tends to be really dark. So there's a dark section of fur there. Now, this dark section with Bernie Mountain dogs and with other brown and black dogs like Rottweiler, that orange eyebrow butts up right against the darkest black in the center corner of the eye. So I do want to be careful to make sure that my black is going on top of that orange, and I have little tiny strands of fur that are kind of coming into the center by the nose and then also onto that orange eyebrow. Alright, taking a closer peek at the eye. Now, I had done this in black earlier, but I'm just going to do another layer of black where I noticed the darkest. And so that would be kind of the ring around the eye and then a little bit in the center as well as in the pupil of the eye. 14. Layer of Black, Part 2: Alright, moving on to the mouth. So here, the darkest sections of our dogs when we're painting them is always going to be the corners of the mouth, where the mouth is especially if the mouth is open. And then it's also going to be the darkest along that line from under the mouth through the tongue. Now, remember in our reference photo, when we were painting the gray, I did not leave any sort of of those little gray or white hairs there in the mouth. I just had a solid, clean line, and I'm still going to do that with the black. So I have the solid black line now in the center of the mouth. And I'm also going to outline around the teeth. Now, remember I have that masking fluid on the teeth, so I can get a really nice, fine black edge all the way around the lip. Remembering that this lower lip here does have a highlight on it, so I don't need to bring my black into that highlight. I'm just going to bring the black around the outside. It's kind of like a hot dog shape of a lower lip. And then I'll also add some black on that right side of the mouth where it's the darkest where it goes back in that smile line. Alright, so I'm going to speed up the video a little bit for showing you the painting the fur on the lower left side of the face. So here we're working on the lower portion of the ear that kind of morphs into the body. Now, with the reference photo, it wasn't very obvious where the ear stopped. And so I don't really think I need to add a very clear definition of where the ear ends, although you might be able to say where those little tiny hairs are sticking out in the lower left, that could be where the ear ends. Main thing I want you to watch in this portion of the video is where you have these larger areas of black is where I'm using the edge of my brush for a larger brush stroke. And then in the sections that are butting up against the white or in the sections where I want to leave some of that brown shining through, I'm going to use more of the point of my brush and making sure that I'm still moving my brush strokes in the direction of the hairs and where I see these hairs moving in my reference photo. Now, here after I added all of my darkest shadows, I realized that I really don't like how intense this highlight is on the left hand side. And so I just grabbed a little water in my brush, and I'm blending in with using a wet brush on top of that area on the left, just to kind of blend in that highlight a little bit. That's the really nice thing about lunar black is that it does lift really easily. So I can lift it just with water, kind of move it around. Although that's also kind of the challenging, frustrating part about Lunar black is that it can move on you as you're painting. Alright. Moving on to the nose, we'll add our final layer of black. So I remixed a little bit more lunar black with water. I always like to start with the nostrils when I'm painting the black layer just because I know that my darkest darks are going to be in the center of that nostril. And then from the nostril, I'll kind of move outwards. I might end up going around the edge of the nose, the top edge, and that bottom V is usually the darkest. And then you'll notice as I'm painting the center of the nose that I might add a little bit of texture using the edge of my brush, some little dots there along the top of the nose just to add a little texture. Alright, so now that I have some of the darkest areas here, I might start some texture dots along the top of the nose. And to do this, I might dab my paper towel a little bit to release some of that liquid so that my dots aren't quite as dark. And so you might notice me dabbing to kind of control the amount of liquid that's in my brush. All right, so now that I have some texture laid down, now I'm going to start on the area between the nose and the mouth. So I'll grab a little bit more water, water down just a little bit more. And now I'm going to start towards the center of the nose here. That's where it's going to be the darkest. And then as I move outward on the mouth, my the space between the dots are going to grow further and further apart, and that's going to create the illusion that it's getting lighter as you move outward from the center of the mouth. Now, I am noticing that along the mouth line along the bottom of the mouth, that it is a little bit darker. And so I'm going along and I'm adding some of these hash marks. Now, keep in mind, just like for my gray layer, I'm not adding these gray hash marks, covering the bottom of that lip there. There's still a highlight on the bottom of the lip. That's going to give it that three D shape. And I'll do the same thing on the right hand side. So I have these little hash mark lines. I'm not covering up all of the gray that's underneath, but I'm just adding to the darkest spots. All right. And now I dab my brush on my paper towel to dry it off. And now I'm using a dry brush to kind of soak up any of those dots along the edge that got too dark. So you'll notice quite often that it's a fine balance of adding the color, water down, and then drying off my brush and using my brush like a sponge and kind of adjusting the wetness after I lay it down on the paper. 15. Layer of Black, Part 3: Alright, little kind of extra pro tip here. Make sure that you're adding the slightest amount of black around those canine teeth, a really tiny sliver. You do want those teeth to stand out a little bit, but you don't want them to stand out too much, so your line shouldn't be that thick. Okay, so now that I have talked through the real time video on the left side of the face, I'm actually going to speed it up and allow you to watch it in a sped up version on this right hand side. So it's all the same tips and tricks that I did for the left hand side, just mirrored on the right. Oh 16. Color Corrections: Alright, so the last step that we have before we add our colorful splash in the background are any color corrections or adjustments. So this is I consider this the very last step. I take a peek at the reference photo with what I painted. And right now I'm going in with lunar black again and making those sections that are extremely dark, a little bit darker. It also helps to add another layer to these darkest areas of lunar black simply because since it's a granulating color, I might need another layer to kind of to kind of even out the tone a little bit. So I'm going through with that lunar black, and I'm just making any adjustments when I'm looking up at the reference photo. I can also use a water down lunar black to kind of tone down any colors. So right now, I'm adding a little bit of lunar black in the eye just to tone down the corner of the eye a little bit, so it's not so intensive a color. And then I might also use that lunar black mixed with a little bit of water to tone down some of the browns. If the browns are getting too light or too light in color, I can tone that down. I'm adding a little bit of brown to the nose right now, just to kind of correct the color a little bit, it turned out a little bit too dark black for me. So this section of the video is sped up a little bit. It's not really about adding extra brush strokes at this moment. It's just about adding, dark black to the darkest spots and adjusting color. 17. Colorful Splash in the Background: Now that our painting is done, we can add a colorful splash. Now, this is optional, but I do like to add colorful splashes behind my pet portraits just to add a little extra color. So I'm starting out with some water. I do want a water down color. I'm mixing carbazol violet with indigo. I like to add indigo to some of my brighter colors just to tone that brightness down a little bit. If it's too bright, adding indigo just kind of softens the color a little bit. Now, with this colorful splash in the background, I am going to use a wet on wet technique. So what I'm going to do is I will wash my brush, and then I will wet the area that I want to add color to using water first and clean water. So if your water is dirty from your painting, I would suggest getting a new glass of water. Now remember that, of course, anywhere that you touch this water, too, it is going to that color is going to go there. So I am starting with the top of the head where it is really light and white because I know that I want a colorful background to kind of help that white portion of the head to stand out. Now I'm not bringing the water all the way to the edge of my paper. I am keeping it as this kind of blob of water, and then I'll drop in my color on top of that. Now, I do try to have the darkest color closest to the head. And then as I come outwards from the head, I might add water or I might lift some of that color to make an edge that isn't quite as dark. Now, of course, I do have to work section by section here, or otherwise, my water will dry too quickly before I'm able to put the paint in. So I tend to chunk the colorful background into three to four sections or more. And so, after I finish with that top little section, now I'm going to work on some of the edges. And, of course, since my Bernee Mountain dog is quite a large dog, I don't have a ton of room around the edges, so I just kind of trying to fill in the space a little bit, leave some of the sections popping out, particularly those sections, especially when you're painting dogs that have really fluffy, long fur around the edge. Sometimes it's hard to paint in between those long little tiny tufts of hair. And so you'll notice that on the upper corners of the ears, I'm leaving those sections open, and I'm just making sure that my purple is fading out into the white background. And that's going to do a few things for me. One, it's going to kind of even out the shape of my overall painting. And two, it's gonna make it so that I don't have to paint in between those little tiny hairs, which is important because if I had to paint in between the tiny hairs, most likely, I'm not going to be able to get up so close, and there'll always be a little bit of a white edge or I might paint on top of the hair. And so sometimes it's just better to leave it out. 18. Final Details: So I let my painting dry, and I did take off the masking fluid from the eyes. So the highlights of the eyes, the teeth, and the whiskers. And so I'm going to go back in, especially with the eyes, and I'm using a micron pen here, which is a waterproof black pen. This is a size 03. I'm using this pen just to kind of help outline the eye here, the highlight of the eye to make it a little bit smaller. Usually, with my masking fluid, my masking fluid tends to make highlights that are too large for the eye. And so sometimes I'll come back with a micron pen. Sometimes I'll go in with paint and cover it with paint. It just all depends on how dark the pupil of the eye is and how much of a change I need to add. So because this is kind of minor changes, I decided to go in with a micron pen instead. Now, for the teeth, I am also going to use the micron pen to slightly outline and kind of reshape, particularly the tip of the teeth and kind of into the center a little bit. I do not want to use my micron pen to outline every single tooth. So you notice that the teeth in the front, you can't really see a line individually separating those teeth. I don't want to separate them. Otherwise, it looks a little too cartoonish. I'm switching over to a Si Zero brush, and with this Si zero brush, I'll go back into some of the more detailed sections, like the eyes, nose and mouth, and I'll add any sort of finer details that I might be missing. So here, I'm outlining where this pupil is connecting to the highlight of the eye. I'm going to go back into the highlights and separate those two highlights out. I noticed that it's in my reference photo, it's pretty much two highlights that are budding up against each other. So I'm going to separate those two using paint. Now I'm doing this with paint instead of the micron pen because it's a lot easier to control. I'm not using as dark of a line. In the center of these highlights, I want it more of a gradual line there. And then I'll come in with a little bit of yellow and very a lot of water. And this yellow, I might mix with a little bit of the black, so it's kind of a dull yellow. I'll go in and I'll just add a little bit of a shadow on the teeth so they're not so bright and white. Usually, the shadow I'm adding is on one of the edges of the teeth, as well as along the bottom of the tooth. And I do want to make sure that I keep one side of that tooth open without any color. So it's nice, bright and white. Usually, along the base of the teeth, though, I will add a little bit of this shadow color. Just so that it tones down the brightness of the teeth a little bit because as we know, dog teeth are not bright white. The last section of masking fluid that I am going to adjust are the whiskers here, the white whiskers. Now, when I pull off the white whiskers on this Bernese Mountain dog, they are very, very white and bright, and to me, they stick out a little bit too much. So I washed my brush. I mixed a very, very light black. And now I'm just going over not all of the whiskers, but the majority of them, I am going over with this very, very light wash of black, just to tone them down a little bit so that they're not so bright and white. No, I am noticing that on the chest here, there's a few areas that are a little too light still after it's dried completely. So I'm going to go back in with some of that lunar black and add another layer of lunar black. Now, with watercolors, it's very challenging to know when to stop. I often have to give myself kind of time limits or let it dry completely overnight, go back to it the next day, and then limit myself as to the number of kind of fixes that I make mainly because, you know, you could spend hours and hours making small tiny changes. Sometimes it's helpful to take a step back from your painting and look at it from a distance and look for the lightest colors and the darkest colors. Do you have those lightest and darkest colors accurate? And then everything else in between section, maybe you don't worry about quite as much. So I am often trying to keep myself from overworking a piece, and it's hard to give advice on this topic just because I think so many of us do struggle with where to stop. So I try to, of course, do just like what I said, limit myself, but also look for those lightest and darkest values. And then once I hit those lightest and darkest values, I say this is good for me. Make sure you let it dry overnight, take the tape off, and you are done.