Watercolor Pet Portraits: Siamese Cat

1. Intro: Siamese Cat: Mm 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 Skillshare tutorial, you'll learn how to paint Champ, the Siamese cat 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. In the resources tab, you'll find supplies guide as well as color guides for this tutorial. Use the tracing template and color reference photos included in this tutorial to trace out Champ the Siamese cat, or use your own reference photos and sketch out your own Siamese cat. In this tutorial, we'll look at how to layer the tans and grays of a Siamese cat in a way that doesn't create hard edges or nasty white outlines. Then we'll talk about adding a final layer of black to accentuate the facial features. We'll look at adding details to the eyes, nose and mouth and complete our painting with a colorful background splash of color. 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 and Applying Masking Fluid to Whiskers: Alright, so let's talk supplies needed for this tutorial. So, first off, let's talk about our paper choice. So I am using in arches hot pressed. This is 140 pound paper. I enjoy painting on hot press paper for my pet portraits, mainly because it's nice and smooth. I can sketch things out. I can get really fine details in the eyes, nose and mouth. And then I can always have the option of using a migranPen at the end to help with details or some whiteqh. It also helps for me to mask my whiskers on hot press paper since it doesn't have any bump. You are more than welcome to use cold pressed paper if you prefer hot pressed paper. It's a little bit more slippery, I would say, to paint on. The cold pressed, and you definitely don't have as much time to work on hon press paper. So if you'd like to work on cold press, that's okay as well. I like to buy mine in ten by 18 inch pads, and then I will cut them into four, five by seven. This tutorial, I'm painting and chase a Siamese cat or Champ a Siamese cat on five by seven inch paper. You are more than welcome to do slightly larger. However, know that you might need to chunk your sections into slightly smaller sections so that your paper doesn't dry before you can get that whole section done. After I have my sketch out on my five by seven inch sheet of paper, I will, um, tape it down onto a plastic board to paint on. For brushes, you would need a variety of round brushes. I like using silver limited black velvet brushes. My kind of go to brush for most everything is a round size four. You can find a larger brush if you would like, for the first layer of color where we're just kind of getting color down over everything. And then you might also want a detail brush like around size zero for some of the smaller, finer lines and areas. Now, I will make mention and show you how to use masking fluid to mask your whiskers. I'm using a calligraphy brush with masking fluid. If you do not like using masking fluid or you want a different option, you can also use PH Martin's bleed proof white with a long rigor brush or liner brush to paint on your whiskers, your white whiskers at the very end. For paint choices, I am using a palette of Daniel mostly Daniel Smith colors. You can find links to the exact colors and the names of all the colors in the resources tab. It's a color guide and supplies guide. For the majority of my painting, I'm using a raw sienna light for the browns and, like, tans. And then I'm also using for the majority of my painting, a color by Daniel Smith called shadow violet. If you do not have shadow violet, you can use a Paine's gray or any other sort of warm gray that you have in your palette. And then I'm also using black at the very end to add some of the darkest details. I'm using lunar black so that you can see through that color. It's a little bit more transparent than a very dark black and opaque black like a lamp black. You can always mix your own black if you do not have a black in your palette, and any other color substitutions according to your cat or your palette are definitely acceptable. You'll of course, need water and a paper towel, and let's get started. Alright, now that we have our sketch done of our Siamese cat, now we're going to add the masking fluid. I like to use Windsor and Newton masking fluid, and I also like to use a calligraphy pen. It has a very simple nib on the end. You can also use you can try your hand at using a glass pen or a ruling pen. I do like using this calligraphy pen, although it might be a little challenging for you to find the right size nib at first. Sometimes you have to push them up and open a little bit. You definitely need to practice ahead of time. For this, so I'm going to practice it first on a scrap sheet of paper. Got some scrap sheets here. Now, with my masking fluid, if I try this and it's not thin enough, if it's too thick, I can add a few drops of water, shake it up, and then try it again. So the first time that I do this, no, of course. I'm doing the video, so it's gonna work the first time. If my first time starts and I can't get anything out, sometimes it will work if I dip it in a second time and then try again. Sometimes it gets dried too quickly, and so then you'll want to take your paper towel, clean it off completely. Kind of bend it upwards to make sure there's no sticky pieces, and then try again. If you are trying it again, like I said, you might need to add a little bit of water. Sometimes I keep two separate masking fluid containers in my studio. One that's just normal, and then the other one that's slightly watered down for whiskers. Okay, so now that I have my masking fluid, I'll dip it one more time in the nib. I like to turn my paper so that I'm pulling it really nice and gently. Of course, as I'm talking, it starts to dry out. Now, I don't have to press very hard when I'm doing this because I'm using hot press paper and because it is a little watered down. And then not too that you don't have to follow these guidelines exactly the ones that you marked with your pencil. We just kind of want a rough guide. I like to turn my paper now as I do my other side. I always find that pulling down for me tends to create a nicer, smoother line. And now, you might also notice that I am not doing these whiskers all concentrically. So I don't have them nice and lined up. There's going I like to try to make at least one of them cross over the other, even if it doesn't show that in the reference photos, right here, I crossed one on top. Right here on the left side, I crossed one on top. The reason I like doing that is because it creates a little bit more diversity than in the whiskers. It doesn't look as man made. And then I'm going to use the same nib and calligraphy pen to add a little white highlight to the eyes. Now, I do not usually do the whiskers over the eyebrows, even if they are quite prominent. I've just found that it's a personal preference that I think it looks better when you don't have it on top. The only exception to that would be like a Tuxedo Cat where it's really dark black and the white on top of the eyes is really prominent. Otherwise, with most other types of cats, I will not add it on top. Now, if you do not like using the calligraphy pen and the masking fluid, you do have other options. So you would not mask any of the whiskers. You would just mask the white of the eyes, or you can still use this for the white of the eyes. This is doctor PH Martin's bleed proof white. You mix it with a little bit of water from your brush, use it directly out of the container. And then at the very end, after you finish painting, your whole cat, it's all done. Then you can take I usually like to use a rigor brush or also known as a script or a liner brush, and then I will wet it. I'll just kind of show you what it looks like on a different sheet of paper on a scratch sheet. So I would wet the rigor brush, get my doctor PH Martin's bleed proof white, all nice and wet. Now, I'm using a rigor brush because this will give me a nice long line. I just have to make sure that I'm using the gentlest of touch. But you notice I can actually create a line that pretty much reaches from one edge of the paper to the other. So it's really nice and um, it has a lot of capacity in the brush to create these long these long whiskers. And so this is also another option if the masking fluid is not working out that well for you. This would also be a great option for adding any of the little tiny eyebrows on top. So once again, pH Martin with a rigor or a liner brush at the very very end. Alright, now that we have this done, now we're going to attach our paper to our board. So I like to buy these little plastic corrugated boards. I get mine from Michael's here in the US. You can tape it directly to your desk or whatever surface you're working on. However, I do like to be able to move my painting as I'm painting. Now, a few options for taping it down. You can use green frog tape. This one my dog got to. Or you can also use there's a brand called Kiwi Hub. You can find this on Amazon. I don't I haven't seen it in art stores in the US, because it is, I believe, an Australian brand, but this Kiwei hub actually is a great tape, and it keeps it secure and in place without it tearing your paper. So I'm going to tape my paper down, even though I'm not going to be painting all the way to the edges, mainly because I want to keep it secure. I also don't want it to buckle all too much because I'm not using a I'm not using a block of paper here. I'm just using a regular sheet of paper because I am painting a five by seven inch. So I don't expect it to buckle all too much, but taping it down is going to help. Alright, now, I'll let it dry just a little bit, and I'll be ready to start painting. 3. Painting the Iris Color: Right now that it's dry, I'm gonna start painting with my lightest colors first. Now, as far as brushes are concerned, I do have a size zero, four and six silver limited black velvet brushes. These are round size brushes. I will mostly be using this round size four. However, I will switch to my round size six when I'm doing larger areas of the furs. I'm going to keep these all close. I'm gonna start, though with my size four. I'll get it wet. I made sure to switch out water so I don't have the white pH martins in my waters. I've got clean water. I'm going to start by mixing my color for the iris of the eye. So I'm grabbing some water on a new section of my plate. And now, Champ, the Siamese cat has more of a blue, a very light blue, almost teal like eye. It's a little bit gray as well when I look at their reference photo. So I'm going to start with this thalo blue. Add just a little bit might even be too much. Just a tiny bit of deep sap green. I had to add a little bit more blue. I just want the little bit of a leaning towards teal, but still blue. White water down, and I'm going to use this for my base layer of the iris. So I made sure that the masking fluid is dry. I'm going to paint this whole area of the eye here over the top of the pupil. I'll paint the second eye. I'm leaving it really nice and watery. If it's too watery and I can't get a nice point, I'll dab my paper towel to kind of get a finer point as I'm working. Trying my best to make both eyes a similar shape. Alright. Now that both eyes have this base color, now I can always go in and I can add drop in a little bit of color if I need to so I can color correct, or I can add a little bit of darker color around the edge. I think I'm going to try a little bit darker of color around the edge. So I'm gonna pull just a little bit of indigo directly from my pan onto a damp brush. Now, my brush isn't crazy wet. I don't want it really wet because if it's too wet, that indigo is going to completely fill up. That tan or that teal color that I just painted. So it has to be a damp brush but not completely dry. And now I'm just adding this indigo around the edge of the eye. If you're noticing that your teal is infiltrating into the center of the eye, dry off your brush and then use your brush like a like a sponge and just soak that in. This is definitely an optional step if you start doing this and it doesn't work. Kind of just stop it. You can always do this as a second layer, cleaning my brush, drying it, soaking up where that went a little too unruly, because, remember, I want this first layer of eye to be really nice and light. It's okay if I have some of these coming in a little bit more. That's okay. Alright, now, usually, at this point, I would suggest doing any of the pinks of the ears or the nose. Now with our Siamese cat, we do not have any pink in the nose because it is all black, and there's not too much pink in the ears. 4. First Layer of Tan: So instead, we're actually going to switch brushes. We're going to do the layer of tan first. So I'm using my larger size six, and I'll get a clean section of my my palette add some water. Now, this tan color, we're going to paint over the entire section of our cat, even the sections that we will paint black on top of. And we're looking for the lightest tone of tan. So here I'm actually going to be choosing and I can't see it. I'll move it over. I'm choosing a raw sienna light for this tan. I don't want something that's too yellow. Um, so I'm not looking for a gamboge, I'm not looking for a burnt orange. I want something like sienna or raw umber, something that really is not too bright. I can always test this on a test strip before I paint it on my painting. Now, I do want this first layer to basically just stain my color because I'm noticing that Champ is not fully white. I can always drop in a little bit more of this raw sienna into sections where I'm noticing that it's a little bit darker. I can drop that wet-on-wet. But I still need to preserve the lightest color first. So most likely I'm going to have to mix more color than this. I'm, you know, if you were mixing two colors together for this base color, I would suggest mixing enough to start, but I don't really need to do that. Now, if you are like me, you're working on hot press paper. This step goes pretty quickly. I'm going to start in one section of my paper, and I will just cover the entire section of the face. If you are doing your own Siamese cat at home, and there's a section that is pure white at all, I would leave this tan away from the white. So you would paint around that white section. But because Champ here really doesn't have any section that is that is white, I'm going to paint the whole face using this tan first. No, I did come down into the neck. I actually don't want to come into the neck because I know that this will dry quickly. So I'm actually going to do just the face part first, and then I'll come back and I'll do the neck afterwards. I'm already noticing that parts of this are starting to dry. I want to be careful coming too close to those eyes so I don't pull any of the teal in. Got a little fuzz there. And even though this first layer is going quickly, I'm still kind of looking at where can I segment it? And this is where I chose to segment it here on the face. Now, this is where I'm saying if you had wanted to drop in any of this raw sienna, grab just a little bit directly from your palette. And then I'm noticing that there's quite a darker raciena here on the edge. I can always drop a little bit in here. There's a little bit raw sienna, a little darker down at the base, a little darker by the ears. Now, I can only do this step like such if my color is still wet. So I'm noticing over in this area, it's already starting to dry. So at this point, I just want to get it mirred I'm not gonna worry about really bringing it up into, maybe I can add a little bit here. You're really gonna have to kind of judge when you're painting. Do you have time for this or do you not? If you don't have time for this, that's okay. This step you can always do after the first layer is dry. Kind of working on my edges a little bit. And now I'm going to take a peek and make sure that I did not get that raw sienna in these sections where it's supposed to be a little bit lighter. It looks like I did a fairly good job with that. Alright, now I'll grab my lighter color again. And now I'm going to look at the chest area. So the chest is a little bit lighter in color, but there are lots of tufts here in the center. I do want my color to come up against the chin here. I do not want it to be like a line of white, and I do also want it along the edge. However, I'm going to kind of make up what the center of the chest looks like. A lot of times, if I have a cat that's looking straight on like this, I'm going to try to angle the hair so that it's triangular towards the center. So to do that, I like to grab some color from the edge and kind of pull inwards. And then once I get to the center here, now I'm going to kind of pull a little bit of a triangle, some on this side, some on this side. And I'm going to start to let some of the white of the paper shine through. You do want to kind of start at this point to blend it into the white of your paper. So I know that's a little hard to see since it's so light in color, but I'm happy with kind of how it's blended at this point. I've got some brush strokes coming in from this edge, some from this edge, with some white shining in between. Any variation of color here in the neck, I'm going to do with a second layer just because it's drying so quickly. Alright, we'll let that dry and then we'll get going on our first layer of black. 5. First Layer of Gray, Part 1: Alright, so at this point, we have two options. Option one for you is to mix a slightly darker of this tan brown and add a second layer right now to the areas around the cheek, around the ears, around the eyebrows to make that your second layer of color. Or your other option is to start with your first layer of that black area in the face using a gray and your lightest shade of gray. Um, I think I'm actually going to choose that option. The reason being is I want to kind of place that gray before I place the darker browns. So either option could work for you. It's just for me in my head, that's the way that makes sense. I want to see where the black is going to go before I put down another layer of brown. So my thinking is first layer of light brown, first layer of light gray, then second layer of slightly darker brown and second layer of darker gray, and then black. That's kind of my thought process when I'm going through this. I'm going to switch to my size four brush here. And I'll clean off this section down below so that I have a little bit more space. Add some water. Now, the gray that I'm going to use, I always like to use gray before I use any black. And for some reason, I always come back to this shadow violet for my gray. It's a warmer gray. You can always use Pains gray and just add a little bit of purple to it Pains gray tends to look a little cooler since it has a little bit more blue tone. I like this shadow violet because it's a little warmer to me. I resembles I think it goes a little bit better with browns. And so this is the gray that I'm going to start with. I do want to start with this lightest shade of gray. I don't want it. I want it nice and water down. I don't want it to be too dark. For a few different reasons. The first reason is if I paint in a section I don't want it, I can lift it up really fast with my paper towel. And just keeping it a light shade and then somewhat darker and then black tends to help my brain to not overwork the piece. Otherwise, I feel like I try to add too many layers and then it gets too complicated. So I usually try to stick to three layers of dark color for any of my sections of black, there's lightest gray, a medium gray, and then a black. Alright, so this shadow violet is a granulating color, so you will need to continue to mix it before you start. I'm going to start on the ears only because that is the best place, I think, to make a mistake. If you're noticing that your shade is a little bit too dark for your cat, then it's a good place to start. Now, here's where I'm going to start right away with negative painting. So some of this gray Oh, see, right here, already made a mistake. Take my paper towel, lift it up. I'm going to be negative painting up to the edge here where it's really nice and white. So I'm pulling that gray into the cracks and crevices of where that white hair would come out. And then I switch to positive painting here at the top of the ear where now I'm pulling out my black hairs that are covering on top. So this whole process of painting, we are going to be using a combination of this negative painting and positive painting. Alright, and that's where I'm going to pause. I want to just kind of fix any line here on the edge. I'll do the same thing on this ear. Now, you can imagine if I started really dark in these ears, one, it's gonna be a lot more intense for me as the artist, where I might be really nervous about making a mistake. So this helps me to kind of ease into it. Just Alright. Now, this side here, it looks like the gray is coming down just a little bit more into the face. And so, once again, negative painting along that kind of line that I drew between the dark and light. And then filling in the rest. Keeping it really nice and wet here. And when you keep it nice and wet, it's also going to help. One, it'll give you more time, but then also it will make for really nice clean edges. And then coming in here and adding some positive painting, the actual, like, little hairs that are coming out. Adding a little bit more water to my brush to get a little bit of the shadow here on the inside of the ear. I might dry off my brush just to kind of blend the edge. So it's not a very hard edge there. Now, you might notice kind of some blue tones here in the gray section. I'm okay with that. I don't mind it. I actually like giving a little bit more color to these areas where it's gray and black. Alright, now that my ears are done, now I can work on the face. I'm going to work on kind of around the eye area first, the left eye, and then work into the right eye. Once again, I'm using a combination of kind of filling in a little pool of color here. And then from that pool of color, then I can pull some strands into that lighter area. Same thing. Another little pool section, and then pulling some strands into that lighter section on top. Trying to keep a little bit of a highlight in that corner of the eye here. Now, at this point, you can either work on this section of the eye. I'm going to work here so that I don't have a hard edge. This is kind of something where as you paint more portraits, you're going to learn a little bit more about how your papers drying, what sections of your painting you can do before it dries. Oh. I'll come around this edge here. Looks like there's a pretty light section around the eye, so I'm gonna try to kind of keep that a little bit lighter. I can always darken it up if it gets too light. And now here I'll start working on the nose section. Now, the nose is I'm going to do it one solid layer except for there's gonna be this big highlight here. Gonna try to leave a little bit of a highlight here by the nose. And you know what? Actually, I'm gonna go around the nose. I just want to make sure I don't lose it. Um, underneath my color here. And then I'm going to do this section of the lip and kind of come around to the cheek. I'm gonna fill that all in. And then I'll come over to the side. And this is where now I still have a lot of this gray tone on the edge here. And so I'm going to pull this gray up into the cheek. And I'm using some brush strokes to kind of mimic the hair here. 6. First Layer of Gray, Part 2: On the cheek. I'm not going to do this lower section yet. I want to get this left hand section figured out first before it dries. So coming up to that edge, kind of re wetting it, and then taking a peek as to how far out it goes. Once again, I'm going to leave that nose open for now, and I'll come to the bottom cheek, bottom edge of the cheek and then the tops of the lips. Fill that all in. And now I'll work on the section coming out of the cheek. Looks like it's kind of stopping more or less in this area here around the corner of the eye. In this circumstance, it's always easier to add more. Later, it's a little bit more challenging to take away. So I do want to kind of keep that edge here from getting too dark from going down too far. Alright. Now I'm going to take a peek at these little sections here now that I kind of outlined my area. When it comes to these sections of these highlights here, I want to be very sparse with the extra kind of details that I'm adding in. So I might add in one or two little hairs. But overall, I want to keep it clean. If I add too many little hairs here, it's going to dirty up the color. So I'm not really following too much my reference photo. Like I said, I do want to keep it nice and clean. When I come to the forehead up here, it looks like I'm going to add just a little bit of a shadow up on this edge, just a little bit coming in on this edge. And then on this cheek, I can I'm noticing that there's some little hairs kind of coming along the edge of the cheek here where it's a little bit darker. This is something that I am using my paper towel to adjust to make sure that it's not getting too dark here. Kind of following the curve of the cheek here coming underneath. This is also where I might add a little bit of extra brown, and if I need it after I'm done with my dark layer, I actually added quite a bit over here, so I think I'm good there. And now I'll add just a little bit to the front area here, but I do want to lighten it up a little bit. I don't want it quite as dark as what I did on the face, so I'm adding a little bit of water to a corner section. And now it seems like this section down here is going to be where it's the darkest. And so that's where I'm going to start. And I'm still going to follow kind of the curves here of the body, at least the curves that I designated. The curves in the reference photo is actually kind of moving the opposite way since the body is kind of tilted. So I don't necessarily want to be using my reference photo for the angles of the body here. I do want some little tufts coming down, but I don't want that many, so I kind of have one or two tuhs here, one or two toughs there, but keeping the majority of the darkness in this kind of lower right quadrant, I do want the lightest section of the cat to be down here. If it gets too dark down on the body, then you lose how the Siamese cat looks. So if it gets too dark, dry your brush and pull off. Pull some of that pigment so it's not too dark. Alright, it seems like this mouth biit is starting to dry, so I'll add a little bit of color to the mouth. Now, it is important that you are doing this mouth section separate and letting the top dry because as you can see, I've got now this hard edge by the cheeks, and it comes into that nice kind of W shape. And we do want that. If we paint it at all at the same time, we wouldn't have that nice edge there. All right. And then same with the nose. It seems like the nose here is now dry or this area around the nose. Now, if you are working on cold press paper, it might not dry as quickly as mine does. Now, the thing about Siamese cats is that their noses are actually lighter than around the edge. So I'm actually drying off, and along the base here of that V, I'm going to just lift a little bit of color. Alright, so this is our base layer of this first layer of gray. Now we'll work on adding our second layer and adding some darker colors to the eyes. 7. Darkening the Eyes: Alright, at this stage, I kind of like to go into the eyes, a little bit and add then some darker shadow violet. This will be the first layer of the eyes around the eyes and in the pupils. I'm still using my size four brush. However, if you need one that's a little bit finer point, use a smaller brush for this. I'm going to start by outlining the eyes here and then filling in the pupil. I want to make sure that I'm keeping to the outer edge of the iris, not the outer edge of this lighter color that's around the eye. I still want to try to preserve this lighter edge around the eye. I just want my darkest section here on the eye. And then I can fill in the pupil. The first layer, at least, of the pupil. Same thing to the other eye? No, painting these pupils so that they are the same size and look correct is probably one of the most challenging parts of painting a cat. I tend to constantly come in and correct them. Ever so slightly making it just a little bit bigger here or there. It's much, much easier to make them smaller at first. And then push the pigment to the edge and make them slightly larger. If you need them larger, it's much more challenging if you get too big and then need to take some away. Now, it's going to look a little awkward before we add another layer of color there, so please don't worry about that. 8. Second Layer of Gray, Part 1: Now that we've got around the edge of the eyes, now we can do our second layer of the shadow violet, which is going to be just slightly darker. So I'm adding a little bit more of the shadow violet to my water. So if I were to check this second layer, it is going to be a little bit darker, of course, than the first. Not a lot darker, though. I mean, remember that we are painting on top of this first layer, and so it's automatically going to be a little bit darker. Same thing. I'm going to start in the ears first and where my darkest section is going to be. Around the edge of these ears. And then where I'm seeing the darkest sections of this black fur. Now, this is where on this layer, instead of filling it all in on the inside, now we're going to be using our brush and making some brush strokes for all these little hairs. So this is where we get into keeping a very, very light brush stroke as we're doing this. We still can fill in some areas. So in the corner of this ear, I can fill in that area. But remember that we do want to add a little bit more of the hair details in this layer. Now, adding these hair details, if this is getting challenging for you, definitely practice it on a scratch sheet of paper. I like to keep my brush fairly vertical here. So here's how I'm holding it with my hand and the tip of my brush, I'm barely touching to my paper. Now, this is why I like using a size four because it still holds quite a bit of water versus if I'm using a size zero, Um, yes, I can get really fine lines, but I actually have to I have to stop painting fairly soon because it can't hold all that much liquid. So I'm I'm used to painting with a size four. However, I can see how size two would also be nice here. Alright, so we're going to continue on into the forehead area. This forehead area is going to be the most challenging to paint, simply because you've got some variation of color here from dark to light. But there are some sections that are lighter, so I'm noticing there's a tuft of light or hair here, so I'm going to start along the top. And I'm making these little hash marks, so I'm constantly making these little lines. These little hash marks to two, 222. And that's what is making my hair. And so I left this little section open. And now coming over to this side, I'm noticing that there's also another little section that's kind of left open a little bit. Now, it is the darkest in the center here. And so I can kind of connect some of these hairs and kind of just paint the darkest swatch in the center here. And now, once I get towards the eyes, now I'm going to be doing this kind of fountain technique. Where here at the bridge of the nose, it's going to start to get a little bit lighter in color. There's a section. There's a highlight here on the left hand side. So I'm going to start doing instead of working down to the nose, I'm going to do these eyebrows on top. I like to turn my paper a little bit so that I'm using the natural arch here. Now, it tends to be darker along the top. There's a little, like, dark edge here that kind of almost looks like eyeliner. And then it gets a little bit lighter on the edge. I'm going to pause. I'll do this other arch first before it dries, and then I'll go underneath. So it looks like my dark values are quite close to the nose here, although there's some lighter closest to the eye that I want to try to preserve. It's pretty similar in this right hand eye where we've got that little line here on top of the eye. And then we kind of fountain outward from that line. Now, to blend these edges, you can also tap your brush on your paper towel, release some of that liquid, and then you've got a little bit less pigment on your brush to kind of blend some of these edges here where it gets a little bit too dark. Alright, I'll mix a little bit more color. Like I said, this is kind of the most challenging of the steps. This layer this in between layer because this is really setting the stage for where the hairs and kind of the shape of the hairs, where where those are going. All right now in the center here is really quite dark. However, you've got a little bit of a highlight here, we've got the dark coming along the center of the nose kind comes inwards. There's a little bit of a triangle highlight, and then it's just darkness on this right hand side until we get to the eye. I'll come under the eye. It's quite dark under the eye. However, there is this little kind of lighter ring around the eye, then I'm going to try to preserve my best, the best that I can. And then this whole section here is just quite dark. And so I'm not going to worry about any sort of fur strokes here until I get to the edge. And then once I get to the edge is where then I can start to add some of these individual I just want to be careful to not go too far out to still kind of keep it close to this edge here. And now this cheek is really quite dark. Around the nose, we do want to be careful because, remember, the nose is actually lighter. I am going to come around this nose, this edge. There is a slight kind of cut out from the nostril here, and then it comes down to a little bit of a point and a little bit of a point. Now we're in the center of the nose here. This whole section is going to be dark. No, this whole section on the inside here, I'm obviously going to be having to adjust. That's also kind of the nice thing about using granulating colors here is that they actually lift really well. So if you needed to re wet an area and lift it, it's actually fairly easy to do so. So even here, if I need to blend the edges, I can just use a wet brush and kind of help blend that edge out a little bit. Same here. I can kind of blend this edge a little bit. Now, noses of our Siamese cats are going to be tricky as well. I do notice, though, at the top of this nose that there is a bit of a hard edge. So I do see a line across the end of the nose. Just kind of butt up against there. I'm going to leave this for now. I can always come back and add that medium tone that I see. I just want to let it dry really well. I don't want to kind of ruin that beautiful edge that I just created. So I'll come around this side. I'll kind of cut it in just slightly for the nostril here. And then down this V shape to the bottom of the nose. So a little edge, little cutout. There's a cutout on each side, and then a little V to the center. 9. Second Layer of Gray, Part 2: Even if you don't notice that in your reference photo, I would suggest painting that in your painting because our eyes are going to automatically want to see that or otherwise we might not see it as a cats. Now, on this left hand side, now we're going to be following the curve of this cheek here. We have it quite dark. However, we do have a little bit of that highlight around the eye here. Coming around. Can always fill that in later. It seems to me when I look at the reference photo, it's kind of a slight U shape under the eye here. And so that's kind of the curve that I'm following. And then, same thing. It gets really nice and dark here in the center. So I want to make sure that I've got my edge where I want it. And then everything on the inside kind of gets filled in. And it's nice and dark up to the nose. And same thing really nice and dark, up to the cheek. Once again, we're not going to do this bottom lip until this top has dried a little bit. So here already, we can see that we've got that highlight here on this left hand side, which we can always adjust if we need to. But at least we've got some of this coloring around the eye. It seems like I kind of got a little too dark in the top here. So I wetted my brush, and I'm just going to lift a little bit of that. Same thing. Some of these edges are a little bit too dark of an edge, so I'm using a damp brush. It's not soaking wet. Actually, I think it kind of comes out a little bit further than what I originally had here. Like I said, this layer is kind of that layer that we're wanting all of our all of our tones, our medium tones to be in the correct spot. And I forgot the ear here, so I'm gonna go back and do the ear. Alright. Now, before we move on, I've given a little bit of time for this to dry, so I'm going to go back in, add just a little bit of shadow to the right hand side of the nose. I'm going to start at the top here. And I want to leave a little bit of a V at the base. So I dabbed my paper towel to get some of that off. And I'm going to kind of blend that. If you notice, I still left some of that highlight here at the bottom, and I left kind of a larger highlight on this left hand side. And now I'll add a little bit to that lower lip. Now, this lower lip section, I'm going to start at the kind of center here, and I'm going to pull my strands out from the center to this right hand side, and then out to the left hand side. And what that is going to do is it's going to give me this really nice mouth shape. You might not notice that on your reference photo, it's something that I think just makes the cat mouse look nice, is that from this center, it kind of soars out. It's like an upside down fountain. Similar to here, then it comes out along the base. If you need to add any sort of darker shades here to the base, I can just add a few darker to the base here. Not a lot, 'cause remember, I want the focus of the darkness to be up top. And then we'll take a peek at the eyes here and add some of the shadows in the centers of the eyes. So we've left this really nice lightness in the center here, but it's actually not that light in real life. So I kind of have that triangle coming down a little bit. This one, actually, it's this one looks pretty good. It was just this one. I was needing to kind of adjust a little bit. 10. Second Layer of Color in the Irises: Let's take a peek a little bit at the eyes here. So my eyes on the inside, I'm missing some of the kind of colored lines and stripes of the iris. And so I'm going to use an indigo with a little bit of my shadow violet here. I do want it quite watered down. I don't want quite that much liquid on my brush. And then I do want to add some of these lines here where it's the darkest. So in the center, I'm going to add kind of some hash marks that are kind of going around the eye here. It's really dark in the center. There's some darkness on the edge, as well. It's a little too dark. Pull some of that up. We'll do the same omni eye. Same thing. These kind of hash marks coming out of the center of the eye. Looks like there's some darker blue on the bottom. And it's a little lighter towards the center of the eye. So I'm going to try to preserve that lightness towards the center. This is a step that you definitely do not want to soften your edges here. If you soften the edges in the iris here, then basically you're just losing all those really nice highlights that you had from your first layer. So do not soften those edges. 11. Color Corrections: Browns: Alright, so this would be the stage where I would suggest if your browns are not dark enough, I would suggest that you do another layer of brown here before we add our black details. You still want to mix your brown with color or I'm sorry, you still want to mix your brown with water. Now, I'm using this tan, this raw sana light, but I might mix like a piaminite genuine, which is a brown. Along with it just to get it a little bit more of a brown color. And here, we're going to use this mainly to glaze on top of areas. So over where it is darker brown, we can kind of come in. I still want to leave some of the highlights, but we can kind of glaze on top of these sections where it should be a little bit darker of brown. I'm keeping it really nice and watered down. I'm coming into this cheek area along the edge here. Especially on the cheek area. I'm noticing that it's quite darker on the cheek here. Kind of comes into the neck area. This brown also could be good to use in the neck, so I'll come back and I'll use it there. Kind of along these edges where the where this really nice light color is blending into the black is where you're going to find these darker browns. So I'm going to come in and add some of those darker browns there. Once again, leaving those highlights. If I'm not getting it brown enough, I can always when it's wet, come back and drop in brown if certain sections need to be darker. Now, the reason why we're doing this in between and before the black is because any of these edges where the brown is meeting this gray, we want the black to kind of cover those edges. We don't want them we don't want to have a dark edge there. And so the black is going to help to kind of cover those edges for us. I'm also going to take a peek the top of the head if it needs to be any darker or I should say, any more brown tones. The center of the face really isn't that brown. Maybe down here by the mouth, it's a little bit more brown, but this is all pretty black. There's a little bit of brown kind of in the eyes. But most of this is black. And then up in the ears, I do notice a little bit more brown. Especially on this ear. Noticing a little bit more brown. And I will grab this brown and we'll add a little bit of brown to the chest here. Once again, it's nice and light colored, meaning there's a lot of water in this brown. Same thing I don't want. Too many details. I want to keep some of these sections without fur details, or otherwise it might get a little bit too busy there. Alright, I'm happy with how that brown turned out. Now I will let it dry and I'll get started on my last layer, which is going to be my black. 12. Layer of Black, Part 1: Alright, so our last layer of this painting is going to be with our black color. Now, I am using lunar black from Daniel Smith. This color is a granulating color, so it is very easy to lift, but it also doesn't get you as deep and dark of black as, say, a lamp black does, you are more than welcome to use whatever black that you would like. I still find that I like and continue to go back to use lunar black for all of my pet portraits simply for the fact that it is so easy to lift, and so it blends in a little bit nicer with my background colors, and it allows those lower layers to still shine through. So I have my fairly dark black color. I'm going to kind of go the darkest that it can go, and I like to start with the eyes and the nose and then work on the rest of the face features. You don't have to do this same way of doing it as I do, but I like to make sure that the areas that I want the darkest are going to be the darkest. So the areas that I want the darkest. For my pet portraits are those that I want my attention at first, which is going to be the eyes and the nose in the mouth. So I'm going to outline my eyes, my nose in my mouth with this black. So I'm outlining around the outside edge of the eye. And then I'm coloring in the pupil. You might notice that I'm not necessarily following the same highlights as you see in the reference photo. I'm just filling in the pupil. If you are wanting to try to add all of those shadows and highlights that you see, you're more than welcome. For me, I think it's sometimes a little too much for me to add all of those. For the nose section, I do want to be cautious that I am not overly outlining my nose. So I like to start with just the lower V of the nose. And then perhaps I might add just a little bit of line on the top, but not connecting the whole nose. I have just a little bit on the bridge. And it might come down just slightly. And then this is where I'm going to stop. I don't want to outline anything more than that, simply because I don't want it to be that prominent. Alright, these are the only two things that I'm going to outline and now I'm going to add a little bit of water to that black. So it's not so dark. And I'm going to start with my ears and work on the face, adding some black detail. Now, I do want to be a little bit sparse with my black. I don't want to cover up those really nice gradients. So I'm looking at where are my darkest areas. So my darkest areas here in the ears going to be around the edge of the ear. And then I have some dark area here at the top. Okay. And it's coming into the center of the ear here as well. So I'm going to add a little bit of that dark along the center here. It's quite dark around the edge. Now, because like I said, because it's this granulating color and because I'm adding water to it, I still get a little see through aspect. It's a little transparent. And now I'm going to pause there and add black to the other ear. I do want to mix a little bit more water on my brush. And then from here, I'm just going to add a little bit of shadow in the ear section, very watered down where I'm noticing it. So I'm noticing it's a little bit darker here. Alright. I think that's all. I can kind of use then that watered down brush to kind of soften some of those edges if some of those edges got a little bit too dark. Now I'm going to use this dark black for the center of the face. Now, this is also going to be a somewhat challenging step. However, I do want to keep the darkest section where I'm noticing the darkest. So when I look at my reference photo, it's going to be this section here and between the eyes and then on this right hand side of the cheek and under the left hand side of the cheek. I'm going to start there where it's the darkest. And then I can at least adjust accordingly. I don't want to start with my lighter tones up here. I want to start where it's the darkest. And then with whatever I have left on my brush, I'm going to start pulling it up into these other sections here. So I'm not grabbing any additional onto my brush. I'm just kind of using what's on the brush. This black layer, like I said, is the hardest. And so if you are nervous at all about this layer, you can always do two layers of black as well. Just have that first layer a little bit more watered down. This, as you can see, this black here is quite watered down. It's the darkest here over the eye. I've got that nice crease in the eye. It's my little fountain coming out. And then I'm gonna do the other side of this eye. This other side also has that dark on top, but it's not coming out. So much the edge. It's a little bit darker underneath. I'm gonna keep that darker black for under the eye here. Same thing. I'm doing the same shape that I did for this other layer. For the layer of gray that's underneath, so I'm kind of doing that U shape underneath. Once I come close to the nose here, this is where it's the darkest. So in the center of the nose, I can kind of fill in here in the center. And then bring it up as I need it. In the center here of the nose, I've kind of got this coming down, a line coming down the center, and then I've got my shadow on this edge here. 13. Layer of Black, Part 2: Gonna mix a little bit more of that black with water. It is quite dark here under the eye. And on this right side of the nose. So here I'm just gonna fill it all in I'm using kind of the thicker edge of my brush to kind of fill in. And now I'll come to the eye and see where this darkest section is coming under the eye. You know, with this black whatever's left on my brush, I can always add a few extra little strands of hair where I'm noticing them. So I added a few over on this cheek. Maybe I'll add just a few over here. But I really want the majority of this darkness to be in this face area here. Because, of course, that's why we see this as a Siamese cat. When I come into the nose, I'm gonna come into this inner triangle of the nose, still keeping the highlight here. I can always soften up those edges after I paint this layer of black, but I don't want to soften it up until it's nice and dry. Then from here, I'm going to go to the mouth area. I'm just going to keep a little tuft of that dark towards that top there. It is darker on this right hand side. And then it seems like it kind of lightens as it comes to this left. So I'm going to keep it a little lighter on this left hand side and keep it darker on this right. I can go over any of these sections if they need to be darker. By the cheeks here or a little bit darker by the forehead. Just make sure that it is nice and dry because, of course, this granulating color will lift pretty easily if it's not dry. Be careful about overworking a section. If it is too wet or too wet still. Now, up here in the forehead, I do want this to be a little bit darker. It's looking a little bit too light compared to my reference photo. So I'm going to darken it up just a little bit. I still want to leave at least this one highlight here. I'm noticing that this is a little bit darker in the center here and comes up a little darker on the edges. Sometimes as you're doing this stage, it does help to kind of lift this up and put it right next to your reference photo to kind of make sure that you have these darkest spots, dark. But also remember that sometimes with watercolors, we don't need to get it quite as dark as the reference photo. Sometimes it's almost impossible to get it just as dark as a reference photo. So I think this is as dark as I'm wanting it. The only thing that I would change here is I'm noticing this section of the nose is a little too light. So I washed my brush and, um, I'm just going to grab a little bit more of that black. I just want to go over this side of the nose just a little bit. I still want to keep the highlight on this left side of the nose. And if this highlight is looking a little bit too bright, I can always tone it down just a little bit, either using water on my brush, just to kind of tone it down or just the slightest bit of pigment because I don't want it to completely go away. I just want to I just want to dim it a little bit, but I still want that highlight there. The same with around the eyes. So if any of these highlights around the eyes got a little bit too light, I can use that wet brush to just kind of soften up those highlights, make them so that they're not quite as bright. All right. And now, the last kind of step before I do my colorful wash is I'm going to use same thing. I'm going to water down a little bit of this black. I do want to add a little bit of a shadow on the eye. This is the same thing. You might not notice it in your reference photo. I like to do this on most of my cat portraits, but I'm going to paint on top of the iris, and it's going to be a one solid kind of shadow on top of the iris on the top or on the top here. So all it does is it creates this little bit of a shadow, and it kind of sets the eye back into the head a little bit. I like how it looks. If you don't like how that looks on yours, you definitely don't have to add that. 14. Quick Tip: Lifting highlights from Black: Alright, so the last little tip that I have for you when painting the black fur is, remember that you can always lift up areas that get too dark. So when you've noticed that your black section is dried, sometimes you'll notice that there's a section that got too dark or that you maybe want to fix the edge for. Remember that, especially with this granulating color, you can fix that very easily by wetting your brush. Sometimes I like to dab it just a little bit on a paper towel so it's not soaking wet. And then from there, I'm going to re wet the section that I want to lighten. And you might have to kind of rub it a few times. You can either wet it and then use a paper towel if you really need to lighten it or you can just kind of use your brush to soften edges. So here, if I use my damp brush, I can soften some of these edges up. You might have to kind of go over it a little bit to re wet that area, like I said, so it might take a few passes to kind of lift up that pigment. But part of the reason why I love using granulating pigments like this is that it does make it really easy to lift up. If this brush isn't working and there's a section where it's really, really dark and you really need to lighten it up, you can use a scrubber brush. This is a kind of more coarse brush, more blunt. Just know that using this scrubber brush, when you have to get it wet and to use it sparingly because it can rip your paper. So because it is coarser bristles, and so I like to use a scrubber brush in combination with my paper towel to lighten up little sections. With a scrubber brush, it might be challenging to go back in and paint on top if you rip your paper. So just use caution with that. 15. Optional Colorful Splash in the Background: Alright, now that I'm done with the face, now I'm going to move on to the colorful splash behind my cat. I'm going to use my slightly larger brush, my size six. Now, normally, I will ask my clients I do ask my clients if they have a preference for color, and this client did not have a preference, and so I'm going to choose a color that will work well with my cat. Usually, those colors tend to be the colors of their eyes work really well. If there's a green eye, you don't want that green in the back. Blues or any sort of combination of teal also works well. Purples work well. Um, so right now, what I'm doing is I'm mixing my color with water. I still don't want my color to be all that opaque of a color in the background. I'm trying to get it kind of that right color of teal. I don't want it to teal, but I also don't want it bright blue. Just want it kind of leaning towards teal. Alright, so now with this background, we're going to use a wet-on-wet technique. So if you need to switch water, you can move these brushes out of the way. So I am going to wet the area that I want the pigment to go first. And so I definitely want my pigment to go on top of my whiskers that have the masking fluid. And so I will kind of go along the edge here. I don't need to make this water go all the way around the edge, and I don't need to bring it all the way to the edge of the paper. So I might stop it here and not go all the way to the tip top. Once I have my water where I want it, then I'll grab some pigment. I'll add my pigment closest to the body. And if I want to blend out these edges at all, I'll just dry my brush and blend out the edges with a dry brush. It's a little bit more challenging to figure out where to stop at the base here. Usually, though, if you're going to have a portrait where it's coming down towards the center V like this, you can kind of have your blob stop part way. You can kind of pull some little strands of fur like this towards the center that also looks nice. And now we'll rotate and we'll do the top section. 16. Final Details: So we've left this to dry overnight. And so now today, we're going to take off the masking fluid on the whiskers and the highlights of the eyes and adjust the tone or the brightness of the masking fluid, sorry, adjust the brightness of the whiskers and adjust the highlights and whatever other little things that we notice. I'm using a kneaded eraser to take the masking fluid off. This is why you also have to make sure that your painting is completely dry because we don't want to be ripping up any or smudging any paint. So when we look at the whiskers, now that they're taken away and we look back at the reference photo, you can see that the point of entry where the whiskers are coming out of the cheeks isn't quite as bright and vibrant as you're noticing on the painting. And so I'm going to use a wet brush and I'll grab a newpaper towel. And using a clean wet brush, I'm going to reactivate that black around that cheek area and blend in the ends of these whiskers into the cheek. If it pulls up any of that black paint, I might need to go back and add a little bit more. So it looks like it kind of pulled back the paint here. Gonna add in a little bit more over on this side. Like I said, this lunar block is really nice. It will lift really easily, but sometimes it lifts easier than what you want it to lift. Might have to look back at that area after it dries just to make sure. Now, with some of that black that I just pulled, I'm adding a little bit more water, and I'm taking a peek at the whiskers themselves. I'm gonna actually take some of that black down. If I go over any of the whiskers on top of this tan, I definitely don't want any black in this tan area. And, you know, as I take a peek at the reference photo, I'm actually happy with how this looks. The white whiskers here actually aren't coming out. They're not as evident. And so I like how that looks. Now I'm just going to take a peek at the highlights of the eyes and make whatever corrections I need. I can also use a wet brush and try to lift up a little bit more of a highlight in the pupil here on the side on this right hand side, I'm noticing a little bit of a highlight in the pupil. We'll see. I'll try pulling that highlight, see if that helps. Sometimes when I pull highlights from pupils, sometimes it looks funny, and then I need to cover it back up again. So having this lunar black, it's a great way to make these edits. And then if I don't like how the edit looks, then I just cover it back up again. I'm gonna do the same thing with some of these highlights in the corner of the eye here. I'm gonna come in with paint. Now you can also come in with my gran pen here. However, remember, if you're coming in with MigranPen and you make a mistake, you won't be able to lift that micron pen. That Migranpen will be, of course, permanent. Alright, so I'm liking how those highlights are looking. And now I'll take off the tape. And my last step is I'll always check it with my reference photo, so I'll hold it up next to my reference photo. And then I'll check and see. Are all my values correct? Does any spot need to look darker? Alright. So I'm noticing that this cheek area over here, I actually want to try to make this angle here by the cheek where it kind of comes from the bottom of the cheek up. I kind of I want to make that a little bit more intense of an angle. And my reference photo, it definitely looks more intense of an angle. And so I'm using a damp brush to lift up some of that black. No, because it lifts it up pretty, pretty well. I might also have to go back and add a little bit of black along this edge just to, um, make it a little bit more similar to this edge. This one is blended out. It's a very soft edge, and I want it a little bit harder. If I were tried to add my black now, though, what would happen is that it would start to blend out because it's still damp.