Watercolor Pet Portraits: Black Dogs

1. Intro Pet Portrait Tutorials: 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 how to paint Billy all black 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. You can use the tracing template included in this tutorial to trace Billy, the mixed breed dog, or you can use your own reference photo of your own black dog. There's also a color reference photo of Billy for you to use, as well as a supplies guide with the supplies and colors that I'm using in this tutorial. I'll guide you through painting Billy, the A Black Dog layer by layer. We'll focus in particularly on keeping the black fur from looking flat by adding multiple layers of gray under the black. I'll show you a combination of real time video with time lapses so you can see the whole process from start to finish. We'll also talk about the secret to success of painting black dogs and why that step is so important. 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 we are ready to get started in preparation to start painting. I did tape my paper onto my plastic board using some kiwi hub watercolor tape. You'll notice that this paper is slightly larger than an eight by ten. The client had gotten her prior dog painted by me, and that was back when I didn't cut to US standard sizes for frames. And so I had painted it on around roughly nine by 12 sheet of paper. So you'll notice it's slightly bigger than an eight by ten, but feel free to paint yours at home on an eight by ten. I did trace it out already onto the paper, and then I did add some masking fluid on the highlights of the eyes, as well as the white underneath the eye. And I used my Windsor Newton masking fluid with a little calligraphy pen for the small fine details under the eye. Alright, for the brushes that I'm going to be using for this tutorial, I have two different sizes. I might use a detailed brush here and there, especially in the eye. Most of the time, though, I use this number four. It's a round size four. It's a silver limited black velvet brush. And then I might use something slightly larger for the largest areas. This is the number six round. But that's pretty much it. You might choose to use, like I said, a smaller brush or a larger brush that is your choice, but those are the two brushes that I'm using. I have two cups of water just in case. I have a paper towel. I have my reference photos. You can't see it, but it's on my laptop sitting next to me so that it's a nice large area. And then I wanted to show you the second reference photo that is also included in this tutorial. I'm only using the neck area for that tutorial. The majority of the time I'll be using this reference photo, the one of Billy in a little tuxedo. Alright. And then, for watercolor paints, I am using Daniel Smith Colors. You can see a list of all of the colors that I'm using in this tutorial on the supplies guide. 3. First layer of Eyes and Nose: Alright, so when your masking fluid is dry, we can get started. So I'm going to start off with my round size four. I'll set my other supplies aside so that I don't get them all dirty. And I'm going to start by painting the iris of the eye. So Billy's eyes are these really nice caramel color. So you'll notice I'm using a pan on my palette. This is actually an art philosophy color, but the closest color to this one that you can buy at home is a quinocratone, burnt orange. Then you don't have to buy the whole art philosophy palette. So it's really nice caramel color. I'm going to start by painting the iris. Now the nice thing about painting the iris is you can paint on top of the pupil and not worry about needing to keep that pupil open and save that for color because we're going black on top. Now, you did use the masking fluid for the white under the eye. I'm not really extending the color all the way up where the black eyelid is if you're not using masking fluid under the eye, just be cautious there. Then we're gonna leave that to dry. Now, the next thing that I always do for my pet portrait paintings is if there's any pinks, particularly in the ears or the tongue, there's a really tiny bit of pink in the ears, but since it's so small, I'm gonna wait and do that until I'm done with the rest of the painting. Just add a little hint. So instead, I'm going to start on the nose. Now, for the first layer of the nose, I'm using and actually, for the majority of the rest of the painting, you're gonna get sick of this color. But I am using a lunar, no, sorry. This is shadow violet from Daniel Smith. It's a gray that's granulated, and so you'll notice some of the pigments, um, starting to separate if you leave it on your palette for too long, and it also can start to separate if you add water on your paper. So our first layer here, we are going to paint the entire nose and the nostril, but we do want to keep try our best to keep some of those highlights. I can add water on top if it's too dark. At the tip top of the nose here, there's gonna be quite a few highlights on the top. So I'm just going to come to the nostrils here, and then I'll work on adding some highlights on the top. I like to do that by kind of speckling around the tip of the nose. I'll dry my brush, and then I'll just kind of lift where some of those edges. I'll leave some of the hard edges, but some of the edges that I might want to soften up. And then I'm also noticing there's a big bright highlight here that I just painted over. I think that's. So this is why we work pretty light at first, 'cause, of course, we want to get our colors all figured out, get our highlights. So I had kind of painted over this little highlight here underneath. So I'm gonna try my best to keep that little highlight. Same here. There's this little highlight kind of on the side of the nose. It's always going to come. These noses, I shouldn't say always, but a lot of times they're going to come to this little point here. And then this whole section on the inside is going to be darker. It is hard to not have these hard edges. I find sometimes one working quickly helps, and then two using a dry brush before it dries. Kind of working on some of those edges to kind of soften them up or just leaving it until it dries and seeing if you really do need to soften it. Most of the time you don't. Like, I like how hard that edges. Now that it's on the paper, you might be able to see it at home a little bit better, but you can see the blues and these kind of violets that are separating. So you can see these warm blues and violets separating out. So every time that you work with this color, you are going to want to remix it. 4. First Layer of Fur: Part 1: Alright, so now that we have the iris and the nose done, now we're going to start working on the first layer of the fur. Now, this is where I'm going to actually switch to my larger brush because I do want my first layer to be this same shadow violet, so I'm gonna need to pull quite a lot more color just so I'm ready. This first layer does have to go kind of quick because we're we're wanting to just get the color down. So we're not worried about any sort of fur shapes or fur strokes. The only area that we're really going to add some fur strokes to is where it's butting up against the white. So the white of the chest, I need to be cautious of. There's a little bit of white under the chin. I need to be cautious of keeping open. And then there's two little highlights in the middle of the ear that I don't necessarily need to keep white because I know it's not white, but I will want to lift up this extra pigment. So I like to work left to right because I am right handed. And so we'll start. Remember that you do want to start in one section and then pull your pigment over. I have quite a lot of liquid. And remember, all I'm doing is I'm just filling in this area because it's an all black dog. Now, here's where I'm gonna pull up just a little bit of that color. I can either use my paper towel or I can use my brush. And this is why we're also moving from one side to the other because we do need to work quickly before any of these edges start to dry, especially when you're working on hot press paper. You do need to be more cautious here of these edges. And so sometimes, if I know that it's a really big section and I won't get there in time, I will pause where there's a natural edge. So there's a natural edge here by the nose, and I'm noticing that the section up on top is starting to dry. So I'm gonna pause at that nose to give me some chance to finish the rest of the section. Now, if you are working on cold press paper or yuck on cold press paper instead of hot press paper, you might have more time than I do. You tend to have slightly less time when you're working with hot press paper. So I'm gonna finish this section out right now. I forgot to lift up a little highlight in the ear here. I'll go back and make sure. There we go. Now, I know I said that we aren't going to be adding any sort of fur details. Obviously, when you're coming up to these sections where you've got a little bit of tufts coming out into the white of the paper, you are going to want to add those little tufts. And then we do want to be cautious as we come around the neck line because, of course, here's where the white is starting to pop through. So I am going to start to add just a few little pieces here and there. So there's just a few that are following the edge here. The rest on the side is going to get filled in. When I work on the edge here, this right edge is going to be a little bit softer, so I'm pulling down on this edge. But then on the edge in the center because we've got these white tufts, I'm going to be pulling some strands inward. And here's where I'm doing this little negative painting. So negative painting is painting the space in between. Now, because this naturally comes down to a really nice point here in the neck, I want to keep that shape on this edge. So I'm going to kind of curve the hairs a little bit and then pull down to a point. I can always take and have a few little swoops kind of come out of this shape, but the main shape here that I want to keep and preserve is going to be this kind of shape to the point here. It's going to help to balance our painting, and it's going to give us a stopping point so that we don't continue the body all the way down. Alright, now I'm at kind of a good stopping point because I've got this border here and I've got this right side done. So I need to mix a little bit more paint. I'm gonna try my best to have the same opacity. Now, I've been doing this a while, so I can kind of eyeball it, but I always keep some test strips of paper on the side that I can always test out the opacity. Make sure that it's not too much darker or too much lighter. 5. First layer of Fur: Part 2: Alright, now let's take a peek at the nose here. Um, it is going to be the same where it's gonna be all one solid color. Now, I am gonna kind of butt up here to that edge. I'm not gonna worry too much about blending out that edge. Depending on the age of your dog, you might have a little bit more white here along in the mouth on the cheeks area. I am noticing a little bit of white around the cheeks from the second photo of Billy sitting. And so I think I'll just add a tiny little bit of white in this lower area. Now, to do that, actually maybe we'll switch to my smaller brush. To do that, I want to have a little bit of line of, like, white dots that are kind of shining through. And then I also want a little bit of a white line at the edge of this mouth here. So it can come down, and this lower lip is what's going to be the darkest. So once I add this lower lip, you should be able to see a little bit better this kind of edge of white. There's a little bit of edge of white here. It distinguishes the upper lip from the lower lip. The lower lip is always going to be darker because it's tucked down into the mouth there. And then immediately underneath this, you've got this lower lip here, you can kind of outline it a little bit just to kind of get it to come out from the neck. And then in between, we're going to do the same thing. We're just going to kind of dot Oh, almost like hash lines in between. You do want to let some of that white of the paper to shine through. So again, I have to keep mixing up my color. And then I'll pull through, and I'll do this side. I think I waited too long. This edge started to get a little hard of an edge. You might notice that I do work fairly wet when I'm doing my paintings. I just find that it's helpful to stay working fairly wet so that you have a little bit more time. If I were working on cold pressed paper, I might actually not work quite as wet. I feel like I tend to work a lot wetter on hot press paper. So once again, I started filled it in. Once you get to this lower lip here, I started almost dotting in between and leaving the littlest, tiniest of a hint of paper there just to denote the difference between the lower lip and the upper lip. 6. Outlining the Eyes and Nostrils: Alright, at this stage, I want to let this first layer to dry fairly well. And so I'm going to take a peek at the eyes. There's sometimes in some tutorials that you might do the second layer where you see shadows and start to add some fur details. I always like going into the eyes before I add any of those shadows on the face because sometimes it's easier to outline the eyes. And so that you have enough space there for that outline. Otherwise, if I go in and add the eyebrow shadow first, I might come too close to this eye and not give myself enough room for adding those details. So I'm going to go in. I kind of started doing this as of recently, and I'm going to go in and add a few layers, well, not a few layers, but kind of more of a medium layer to my eyes. I'm still using this size four brush here. However, if you would like to use a smaller brush, you definitely can. I always starting outlining the top and the bottom of the eye. Keeping it around the iris there, especially with dogs like Billy. This upper black section of the eye is going to be thicker than the lower. There usually is a black ring around the iris. It's fairly thin. And then there's also so it's a little thicker in the corner. It's thinner on the inside. And then there's also, of course, this black around the lower lid. This is where with Billy, you can see a little bit of that inner eye. So Billy is a mixed breed, but this inner eye being like this kind of it reminds me more of like a boxer breed. This is why it's helpful to have that masking fluid there. Then this is where we can expand this upper eyelid to help with the shape of the eye. So it looks like there's the top is a little bit more of like a table shape, and then it comes down. And then I also can add the black pupil here. Now, I'm still using this might look like black, but this is still this shadow violet, a more opaque than that first layer. Alright, now, here's where if I need to make any corrections on the thickness. So I already am noticing on the center here, this black is a little bit too thick. So I'm gonna come in with a wet brush, lift a little bit of that thickness out. I'm thinking that'll probably help with the shape of the eye, too. No, these are all really minor details that if you're not able to add to yours, that's okay. Do your best. But this is also a great way to kind of see how I make little tiny corrections on the shape of the eye or on the size. And I'm very impatient, and so I didn't wait for it to dry enough. It started to spread. So we'll move on to the left eye. I'll give it a little chance to dry. We're doing the same thing here. More of a medium to medium dark opacity using this shadow violet and looking at trying to get the shape of the eye. Alright, but you see what I mean? Especially at the top of the eye that depending on the thickness of that upper eyelid there, if you started with the shadows, you might push your shadow down a little bit too far and kind of cut into that eye. And then we don't have enough highlight in between. So this is why I like to do the eyes first. So I don't think I have this big enough even. The next thing to think about is try your best to keep these edges to be really nice and hard edges. You can always soften them up afterwards, but I really do think that it helps with the clarity of the eyes if you can keep those edges sharp up till the very end, and then you can add some extra color in. Um, just like how we did with the eyes, I actually like to go ahead and paint the darkest section of the nose first. So these nostrils it's a similar concept, a similar reasoning behind why I'm doing this and why I did the eyes darkest first is I want to be able to see where these darkest sections are so that when I add the in between layer of color, I know exactly where my darkest sections should be. Sometimes doing the medium tones right now at this stage, sometimes can be challenging. Mainly because then a lot of those pencil lines that you did in the very beginning are now suddenly harder to see. Alright, so I did the nostrils here. I connected it a little bit. I know it's not as dark as it needs to be, but I know I will go over that part later. I just wanted to let the nostral area dry a little bit before I add that other layer. 7. Second layer of Fur: Adding some details: I am still sticking with my round size four. I do want to get a little bit more detail on this layer. And so I'm keeping this round size four. I'm not going smaller than this because I don't want my hairs to be really tiny. I don't personally like when watercolor pet portrait paintings are just a whole bunch of hash marks like this, the entire painting. I think I would go crazy if I had to do that. So instead, what I like to do is I like to make, um blobs of color and then pull some strands of fur from those blobs of color. So what does that look like? What does that mean? We'll go over it. I like to start with the ears first. So this second layer of color is almost the same as the first opacity. The reason why it's not all that much darker is because we're adding it on top. So it's automatically going to be a little bit darker. I might correct it once I start painting here, but the one thing you want to be cautious about with this second layer is going too dark too quickly. When we go too dark, too fast, what ends up happening is we end up having our paintings look a little bit too cartoonish. And so making sure that we keep the second layer still slightly semi transparent, and then I want my black layer on top of the second layer. Now, in areas that are super dark like the ear, it's not quite as big of a deal. But in areas like the face. So do you see how we do have a really nice contrast if this layer was this dark? I mean, I know this is kind of an exaggeration, but if it were that dark, then suddenly you have the same contrast as the eyes, and it becomes too contrast, too much contrast right away. We do really want to have that in between layer of color, the in between value, I should say. Alright, now, um, I think I'll let that dry. Let me do this right ear first. I certain edges like that are too hard, I would definitely suggest to wait until the section is dry and then soften it up a little bit. Sometimes it's hard to have those edges, soften them up while it's still wet. Alright, now, when we take a peek at the face, now, I know there's sections like above the eyebrows that are darker than sections in between, but we want to remember that that's going to be the last layer. So I kind of need to train my brain to think about where am I seeing any shadow. So I'm going to start on this left side. I am seeing a shadow that's kind of running up. Around the side of the face. It's got that too close to the eye there. Now, this is also why we're using this lighter transparency for the second layer so that we can lift up if we make any mistakes anywhere. I'm noticing that there's this shadow here. It's kind of helping with the shape of the face. It's coming kind of all the way around. You've got a little highlight that's being left by the ear, but it kind of comes all the way around the head. Here's where if you wanted to pull any of those little hairs out that you see. Now, as I'm painting, sometimes I'll keep section by section. Sometimes I'll just kind of run where I see the whole shadow because I didn't want a hard edge here. I'm basically running along this side of the head now until I am at a spot where I can stop. Now, it seems like this whole side is just gonna be a little bit darker. And then I think this is where I can stop. I'm not going to do the body yet because I'm resting my hand there. We'll remix up our pigment, and I'm going to go back to this left side. So usually, generally, you're going to have a darker shadow around the outside of the face along the outside edge of the face, and that's going to help give it a little bit of dimension in that circular shape. So you see I painted this right hand side, now I'm coming back to this left hand side. And of course, this is kind of a good stopping point. So now you also will notice that under the eyes of dogs, you do have this almost triangular shape here that comes underneath. Now, when I get too much liquid on my brush, I tap it off. So it's this dark triangle. And then there's a little bit of dark on the edge of the eye. Immediately above the darkest section of my eye, I've got a little bit of a highlight. So where this eyebrow is, this is why we did the other eye first is because the eyeliner first. It's because now I can paint and leave this little tiny section as a little bit of a highlight, and then I come in, and I'm going to come up and touch the center of that eye there. Now, this edge here seems to be quite pronounced. And then I do have a little bit of, like, a curve. Billy's got a little bit of a curve here. It almost gives him that kind of sad dog look. If at any point I need to blend any of these edges out, sometimes I will dry my brush and then use that dry brush just to soak up a little bit of that dry edge. However, I still want to keep this highlight here. There are ways of going back and softening up those highlights afterwards. I think I'm going to go and I'm going to do this eye first. I don't want to do this little section here because I want to make sure that this has a chance to dry a little. So I'm going to do this right eye, this darkest section right now. 8. Second layer of Fur: Adding details, Part 2: I am wanting to add kind of this bridge of the nose as kind of the second layer. So this natural where I had stopped before, it almost seems like I've got a little bit of a shadow here, and then it's a little bit of almost like a fountain where I've got it coming to the edge to the sides and then to the center and now back over to this right side. Once again, if I've got too much on my brush, I'll take some of that off. So it looks like it's pretty much in line with the maybe just slightly above the pupils here is where these start. So now that it's dry, I can touch. So now here's where I'm adding some single lines, but I am making these lines connect. So what do I mean by that? I don't have these as little hash marks, so I'm not doing this along. I'm connecting them all. But the reason why I'm still doing the hash mark stroke is so that I have these hairs on the top and the bottom. Now, here is where if you've got these sections that are a little bit too light in color, you can always go back and add a few separate little strands here, particularly along the edges. If you want to try to blend the hard edge with the soft, I'm coming in, I'm adding some separate lines. I'm not going over any of those sections that I just painted. But I can add a few separate hairs in that space in between or close to the edges so that it just kind of helps to blend blend it out. Same with here. I can add just do you see how I'm adding just a few little extra hairs in the in between? Now, what that does is it keeps us from going insane by trying to do little tiny hairs all over. So I've got these clumps of color. And then I can go back afterwards, and in my next layer, I can always add some extra, you know, individual hair details. But for these first few layers, I don't want I don't want it to be too separate. Now, this is just stylistically. I mean, if you are the type of person that you wanted to add, all those individual hairs, go for it. It's just I don't All right. So now let's take a peek at the nose here. So in a lot of our dark colored dogs. The nose is actually, at least the top of the nose is lighter. And so we want to go up to the edge of this nose here, and then we're going to add the shadow above the nose. Now, for Billy here, it's a little uneven of a shadow on the top. I'm gonna see how it looks. I might actually kind of correct that shadow just to help balance it a little bit more. We'll see. I'm starting now that I've got this shape here, now I'm going to start leaving a little bit of space in between. And I noticed this little corridor here that's a little bit lighter. I'm going to try to leave that corridor, but I'm still painting in the shape of coming up and out of this fountain. So it's a similar shape up here. It's mimicked. All right. Now, around this side, I am going to leave a little bit of a highlight here on the left. It does seem like my light source is more on the left hand side, because, of course, this side is much darker. So I'm going to try to leave a little bit of light source here. This lower jaw seems like it's pretty dark. And then it's going to be a little bit darker towards the bottom of that jowl. And here's where I'm going to start to continue where I had these little dots here in between. So I'm coming on the same shape coming around. And then as I come inward, I'm going to start to almost dot inward and up, come down, dot inward and up. And then I'll do the same on the inside and start to dot a little bit out. So I'm leaving this little chunk inside to be shining letting what's underneath shine through. Now, this side is darker than the other side. Now, remember that this lower lip is the darkest, so I do want to have a really nice solid, hard edge here. So it's very triangular. I know you might see some fur. I like to keep it very linear because I want to make sure that you can tell that that's where the lip is. Then on these all these little, like, in between, remember that? That's kind of where the hairs started coming together. So now we go back to just kind of dotting as we try to connect them a little bit. If you lose the lip at all, dry your brush, and you can always lift. 9. Darker layer on the Neck and Third layer of Gray on the Face: Alright, so let's start with the neck line. So my neck line, especially under the face here is going to be the darkest. So right here under the mouth is going to be the darkest. And then I can start to lighten it up as we get down below. Now, I'm using the second picture here to help out. So if you notice that I'm kind of strain from what you see on that first reference photo, that's why. Alright, so we've got this nice and dark in this little jowl here underneath. And now I'm gonna actually leave a little bit of highlight there. Bring this dark shadow. Now, I'm trying to keep these kind of similar shapes here. So you'll see very similar movements. Now, to do this, I'm using the edge of my brush. I'm using I'm not using the tip of my brush until I get into these little sections in between, then I'm using the tip of my brush. Now, before that dries, I'm gonna come in. I'm gonna grab more of that shadow violet. And I'll add a little bit more here where I see it's the darkest. Alright, and then while I'm at it, since this is so much darker than the rest of the painting, which is on purpose, I definitely wanted to make sure that I kept the facial features a little bit lighter. And so I can, though pull some of this darkest shadow violet still to this right hand side of the face where you see the biggest shadows. Now, I might not bring this next layer of shadow violet. I might not bring it all the way to the edge. I might try to keep still some of that edge, that first layer. So do you see if I would have gone completely over that first shape that I made? And if I would have gone all the way to that edge, then I would have had I wouldn't have been able to blend all these layers together so easily. So I'll show you one more time on this side. So I'm starting kind of at the darkest areas in the center, and then I'm working my way out. And as I work my way out, I'm not gonna come all the way to the edge to the edge of that layer that's underneath. Once again, I'm still not overly blending. These layers, I'm trying to keep these layers nice and, like, lots of contrast, and I can always blend them out later. Now, Billy's got this very signature kind of almost bump on his head. And then the other ear. I just noticed I didn't really had a little lighter layer there. Whoops. 10. Second layer of Gray on the Nose: Alright, so now I'm gonna look at the nose area where I should have this darker or my darkest of colors. So once again, I'm looking at the nose area I definitely need more in the nose and the mouth. So the mouth is kind of that darkest. Same with the nostrils. But remember that I did not add that kind of in between color yet. I'm gonna just kind of outline the nose slightly. I mean, I shouldn't even say outline, but sort of outlining. And then I can use a little bit of a wet brush. Alright, so I'm going to add a little bit of water to what I've been using. And now I do want to add another layer to this nose. So I'm still working on kind of the outer edge of the nose, but I'm trying to keep. There's this little almost, like, moon shape highlight here that I want to try to keep clean. Everything underneath it, though, is going to get a layer of color. There's if you can leave a little tiny highlight in the nostrils, leave that. If you can't, no worries. Soften up these edges of this highlight a little bit. And then this is, like I said, that in between layer where it's darker on the inside here. Now, if it's starting at this stage, especially with the nose, if it's starting to look like, pretty dark everywhere, know that we are going to come in with the black. Now, we do want to make sure that the little shadow above the nose needs to be darker than the nose itself, or otherwise, that nose gets pushed back into the face instead of getting popped out of the face. So make that a little bit darker. And then I'm gonna make looks like this isn't the bridge here isn't dark enough. So I'm going to add another layer to this fountain in the nose. Oh 11. Color Corrections: Alright, at this stage of the painting, now that we've got our three layers already, I'm going to take a peek back at the white and at the irises of the eye and to see if we want to add any color in before I add my black details. So this is kind of like the color correcting stage. So my whites, I do need to water down some of that shadow violet. It needs to be really quite transparent. And then I'm just going to add a few little dash marks following the curves of the hair here. Now, I'm not adding a lot. I do notice definitely a lot in Billy's chest there. But if I add too many, it's going to then look gray and not white. So I want to just be cautious with that of not adding too many of these little hash marks there. So I want the white to shine through. And then I'm going to take a peek at the irises. Now, I solve some color there. I am going to add a second layer to my iris. But really what I want to do is I want to add a little bit darker on the edge, the outside edge, and around where the pupil is. So I'm tracing that edge of the pupil. So what that does is it just kind of softens it up. And then I'm adding darker color along the outside edge. Not really adding it in the center edge. Now, if I wanted to add any color to the ears, this is the sage I would do it in, so I would add just a little bit of water to This is quinacraton magenta. And now I'll add it really watery. This is also where you can take advantage of it being all watery. You can blend some of those edges if you need to blend some of those edges on the inside of the ear. Even if it's not as pink in the picture, I still kind of like adding a little bit of pink to the ears just to add a little bit more color, especially for our all black dogs. You can also do this if you see any color in the nose, for example, you can add a little bit of extra color to the nose. So it's just little areas here and there, if you wanted to add little hints of color if you see it here and there, or if you see any hints of color of any brown anywhere, depending on the lighting of your picture. So like in a different picture, I saw some brown over here on the right hand side. 12. Lunar Black Layer: Ah, so now I'm going to start my next layer, which is going to be starting with black. So up until now, I've only used my shadow violet, and now I'm going to start using a black for all these details. So I'm going to start by using the black I'm using that I have in my palette that I like to use for pet portraits is called lunar black. It is a granulating color by Daniel Smith. The reason I like using lunar black and specifically granulating colors with my pet portraits is because it does help to leave a little bit of a texture. So as you can see with your black color, once you do paint it, it starts to kind of almost leave this molting type texture where it's a little bit darker in certain spots and lighter in others. I like that effect in my pet portraits. I also think that the granulation from lunar black helps to let the underlayers shine through. However, if you don't like granulating colors, you want to use a different color, you are more than welcome. That's definitely your choice to use something that isn't granulating, more like a lamp black or some other pure black that you have at home. So before I do any of the black fur, I'm going to start by adding all the black details around the eyes. So once again, I'm still using this size four. But if you would like to use a smaller detail brush, you definitely can use a smaller detail brush. I'm going to start the same way that I started with the eyes at first, outlining them, making sure that I've got the right shape. When I do paint the pupil with the black, I do want to leave a little bit of a rim around the pupil using that shadow violet, leaving that shadow violet, mainly because I don't want there to be a really, really hard edge along with the with the black, and keeping that soft edge of the shadow violet is gonna help keep that edge a little bit softer. Now I'll go on. I'll move on to the nose. I'm going to start with the nostrils. So I'm starting with this black directly from the pan just with the wet brush. I want to make sure that I get my darkest values first. I like doing it this way because I don't want to start with the darkest values on the face, and then all of a sudden have the eyebrows be darker than the eyes itself, and then my focal point will switch from the eyes and nose and mouth to then the fur around the face. So right now, I'm kind of outlining but leaving some space in between, so it's not one continual line. I'm going to let that dry before I fill in the darkest parts in the center. Now I'll add some dark to the mouth. Remembering that the darkest area of the mouth is going to be this lower lip. Alright, and now, as I let this all dry, I am going to work on the darkest part of the body, which is gonna be the ears. And then at the very end, then I'll add some black to the face and to the body. Rinse my brush and then use a damp brush or just pick up a little bit of pigment and then carry that pigment into the lighter area. But since I have that dark pigment all around, then it's a lot easier to use a wet brush to just kind of blend inwards. Now, the biggest thing to think about when you're adding these black details is you don't want to add black over the whole painting, but you also need to make sure that you're not adding black just to one section. So if I'm adding black to the ears to the inside of the ears, I do want to go back and add maybe a line here or there around the edge or around the tip here so that it helps to connect the black with the rest of the ear. I don't want the center of the ear to look like it's off on its own. Come back and add a little bit of this black that I have mixed with water into the sections where it's the darkest. Alright, I think the nose is going to be dry enough now to add another layer. Now, instead of taking the black directly from my pan, I have mixed it with water. However, it is still fairly dark in opacity. I am noticing that the bottom of the nose here is quite dark. But mixing it with this water is going to allow it's going to do two things. One, it's going to help give it a little bit of transparency so that if I have to lift it up, it will lift up a little bit easier. So if I place it in the wrong spot, having water is going to help me be able to lift it easier. And then adding the water is also going to allow some of the colors underneath to shine through. Now that I have the water down, I can pull some black directly from my palette and then drop it in where it's the darkest. Now, with this black layer, you do want to be a little cautious of over mixing. So what do I mean? When you are placing your color onto that bottom layer, you want to avoid scrubbing too hard. If you start scrubbing too hard, you are gonna lift up the underlayer. Now, this is another reason why it might be a nice idea to leave that gray layer to dry fully before you start your black layer so that it gives it a little bit more time to dry on the paper so that you don't lift it off. Most of the time, though, I just paint all in one session. So Alright, now that the nose is done, when I look at the darkest areas in the body, I still want to leave the face for the end. I'm going to start on the neck area. And when I'm doing the neck area and around the edge, I do want to focus on where is the darkest sections first. So I'm going to add once again, I'm using the water down black here because I do want it to be dark, but I do want it to be still somewhat transparent. I don't want it to be completely matt dark. Like I said, when it's wet, you can still drop in a darker black if you need it darker, but black is one of those that I think it's very easy to go too dark too quickly. So when we are painting our darkest sections, we still want to remember that some of these areas, we can let that gray shine through. We do not have to cover up all of this area with the black. Now, this black is a little bit harder to blend in. So while it's still wet, I'm going to take a damp brush, and now I'm going to go back and blend out some of these edges. Black is almost more challenging to paint in large swatches versus in small swatches. It's a lot easier to paint these small areas with black versus these larger areas. Now, move on to this right side. 13. Lunar Black Layer: Part 2: Now I'm ready to bring this black up into the head. So now I'm going to start on this right side, still with this watered down black. Use a damp brush to blend these edges. Be cautious, though. Here's where, if you use that damp brush or you go over it too much, you might lift up that paint. Especially, this is for this reason, this is why I do say that black all black dogs are the most challenging to paint. H. Now, know that still at this stage, it's going to look a little bit weird. Remember that we still have all of these hard edges. There is a trick that I'm going to be showing you in a little bit once we're done with all these darkest sections. So hold on and have faith. So once again, we finish this right hand side. Now we're looking at the left hand side. We want to get the darkest values on this left hand side. I did this right side of the nose. I do this left side, so I dotted a little bit of that black in the center, pulled it out. I'm keeping a darker line along the base of this cheek. But I'm still trying to preserve a little bit of that kind of white highlight. Doesn't have to be pure white, and it doesn't have to be a solid line. Alright, and now we'll move on to the face, where it's the darkest. Now, we are not going in and adding black to everything. Like I said, we're just looking at the darkest for now. So the first area that I see it really nice and dark is this little triangle here. Paint the darkest section first. Wash my brush. Use a damp brush to pull some of that over. Not going all the way to the edge, leaving some of that shadow violet. So it's just like what we did with the eyes. Now, I'll use some of this black in the center, the eyes, just like we did with this last layer. We're gonna leave an edge around it to show these other layers that we did underneath. So I'm not bringing that black all the way to the edge. I'm leaving a little bit of that shadow violet to shine through. So I'm starting painting that black only in the very, very center. And then it seems like I need a little bit of black in this center of the nose just a little bit. I think I also might need a little bit of black above the nose here. 14. The Secret to Success: A Glaze of Black to Help Blend: Right now that we've done our darkest sections in the face, now you have two options. One, you can leave it like this and have a more higher contrast from light to dark, or you can glaze over some of the facial areas using a water down black to help blend out some of those edges. So I'm going to start by doing that on the right side of the face so that you can see what it looks like. And also, so then I can decide, do I want to do that over the whole face? Because I know my light source is coming from this left side. So when we do this step, I would definitely suggest that you paint over areas that are already dry. So you want to make sure that you're not going over these darkest sections. These darkest sections, if you go over these, you might run the risk of pulling more paint up. So you just have to be cautious. Once again, if you wanted to, you can always let this layer dry completely and then do the black glaze if you're concerned about lifting up some color. And then the consistency, the transparency of this black glaze is going to depend on how dark you want your final piece. So I'm going to start with about this transparency first. If I'm noticing that I'm losing a lot of my nice shadows in there and some of my nice texture, I might lighten it up, but I just have to kind of go with the flow. And then, of course, you don't want to glaze over the eyes or you probably don't want to glaze over the nose or any of the white sections. Alright, so I know this is kind of scary. We'll try it. Oh, and the last thing, just make sure to remember that when you are glazing, that you are doing this fairly quickly. But know that when you do glaze, any of these sections that kind of that where you have too hard of edges and you want to blend it out a little bit. So here you can always take a little extra time and just slightly blend them out. Now, you can already see a difference between this side and that side. I'm going to do a little bit of glaze on the nose here. But I am kind of wanting to keep this without the glaze to kind of keep it a little bit lighter. I also do like this section here, so I might do a little bit of glaze, but not a lot. I do want to keep a little bit of that detail. Now, this glaze will also dry a little bit lighter, but already you can see how it's kind of subdued some of those hard edges. Now, if you wanted to, you can always glaze a little bit over where the chin area is coming in. What that's going to do is it's going to push this neck back a little bit and the chin up. And then I do want to glaze the ears. Oh. Now, at any point, if you don't like any sections of the glaze, you can always use your paper towel lifted up. But this is one way in which we can kind of help to soften some of those edges a little bit. While it's still wet, this is also a good stage of if there are any sections that you needed to drop in a little bit more pigment, just to help with the shape, you definitely can do that, especially around the outside edges. So just by adding a little bit more pigment up here at the top, kind of helps to bring that shape into the head a little bit more. Of course, you have to do this while it's still wet. So now I'm just adding adding back a little bit of texture. And, of course, probably the hardest part of paintings like this is where do you stop? And so I think this is probably a good spot to stop. So we're going to do our colorful splash and then we'll come back and we'll add some details to the ice. 15. Colorful Splash: Alright, so my client did not specify if there was a color that she preferred for the background. She allowed me to choose the color. And so a lot of times with all black pets, I do choose a color that's a little lighter in tone. I'm not going to choose a purple because I do feel like this shadow violet does pull a lot of purple already. And so I want a color that's going to kind of contrast a little bit with the purple background. So I'm gonna choose to do a teal for my background. I do have a turquoise here already. This is Theo turquoise. Turquois also um, goes really well with orange in the eyes. And so I think that also will look nice. If you wanted to kind of dull this turquoise down a little bit, you can always add a little indigo to it to kind of dull it down. But I kind of like how it's nice and bright. Alright, so we're gonna wet a section here and then drop in our color, and we'll move around as we go. Now, shape wise, I am going to leave maybe some of the little tips of the ears hanging out. So we'll start by the ears. Now, you do want to make sure, since you are just glazing, that whatever section you're working on is more or less dry. I'm only going to wet probably just around here. I don't want to once again, I don't want to have that ear included. And I'm not going to wet in between all these little hairs. I'm going to leave that open and then pull some of that color inward. Once I drop the color down. Now, this section is always challenging. I'm going to actually leave it and maybe add the color later. So now that it's wet, now I can drop in some color. Now, we'll continue all the way around. 16. Final Details: Alright, so I've taken the masking fluid off of the eyes, and now we're ready to kind of clean them up a little bit. This is also why I only do masking fluid around the eyes, instead of in parts of the nose or any white of the fur, I do feel like it's hard to control how wide the masking fluid gets. And so, I do prefer just keeping that white space with my brush. So I'm going to start with this left eye, so I'm using some black paint. I'm just gonna clean up kind of the shape here. And then I'm also going to clean up a little bit the shape of the white highlight. Alright. Then once you have your shapes kind of cleaned up, now we can go in and we can add a little bit more of some shadows here. So the white of the eyes is just a little bit too white for me. So I'll use my brush that's kind of dirtied up with this black, and I'll grab just a little bit of that turquoise that I used for the background, and I'll add just a little bit of that turquoise mixed with that black just to the corner of this white of the eye. You can always add a little bit more of that blue or pull it off if it got too much. I'm gonna do the same thing for this left eye, just in the largest corner of the eye there. I also do see a little bit of pink in the very corner of the eye, and so I'll grab a little bit of that magenta and just drop in a little bit of magenta in that very center there. If it gets to be too much, you can pull it off. And then the last thing that I can do is I'm going to add a little bit of shadow to the highlight. So I'm grabbing just the turquoise here. And now I'm going to that white highlight in the eye, I'm just going to do, like, a little coma on this right side. Of the highlight. I'm still leaving some of that white, but adding just a little bit of that blue to reflect is gonna help a lot. The last thing that you might want to consider is adding just a little bit of shadow to the iris here. So you can add just a little line of this shadow here in the center of that iris, especially at the corner here, if it got a little bit too bright in color, um, just add, like, a little a little shadow there. I'm noticing that black that's sticking into the iris is bothering me. You can also do this with a black micron pen if that would be helpful. But just adding a few of those little details really helps to kind of brighten those eyes and bring them to life. A few little extra things. You can always go back and add another layer of this black glaze, if you choose, especially if you need to get certain sections darker or if you need to get all around the head, the outside of the head a little bit darker. You can always go in and use a little bit of pH Martin bleedproof white in any of the sections that got a little bit too muddied, or if you have any white, around the nose area or around the eyebrows. If the dog is older, you can sometimes use white gouache for that or for adding highlights that you accidentally lost. And another option, too, is you can always go around and add black micron pen either to the outline of your pet or outlining the features that you want to really stick out. So the eyes, the nose, and the mouth. Those are some options as well.