Watercolor Pet Portraits: Tortoiseshell Cat

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 Callie, a tortoise shell 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. You'll have access to both a tracing template and a color reference photo of Callie, the tortie cat, or you can use your own tortie cat as reference to paint. You'll also have access to color guides and supply guides with links of what I'm using and where to purchase. We'll start by painting a transparent layer of orange under our entire cat. We'll then look at how to gradually darken your torties patches in a way that keeps their eyes, nose and mouth from disappearing. I'll include some easy tips to blend the modeled fur so their patches look connected instead of disjointed. We'll finish with a colorful splash in the background, and we'll add some final details with a black micron pen. As an added bonus, I've even included a quick guide with step by step pictures so that you have an easy way to see how all these layers come together. So grab your supplies, and let's get ready to paint. Don't forget to upload any questions that you have, and I'll try my best to answer them along the way. Let's get started. 2. Supplies: Alright, so let's talk supplies a little bit before we get started. So first of all, let's talk about paper choice. So for this tutorial and for all of my pet portraits, I do like to paint on arches, 140 pound paper. This is 100% cotton. I do like to use hot press when I'm painting my pet portraits. Hot Press is a lot smoother. I feel that it's a lot easier to use my micron pen. It's a lot easier to add fine details like whiskers and highlights of eyes and things like that. However, if you prefer using cold press paper, that's 100% okay. Just know that your drying times might vary just slightly from those in the video. In my opinion, hot press paper tends to dry a lot faster. Those layers dry a lot faster than with cold press. If you're doing, for example, your first layer of orange that we paint when we're painting our tortie cats, that light orange tan layer, you might need to wait a little bit longer than what I need to wait in the video because mine will dry a little bit faster. If you do decide to try hot press paper, I like to buy the ten by 14 inch pads of paper, and then I cut them into four, five by sevens. I do suggest that you try this tutorial out for the first time on a five by seven instead of much larger. The reason being is because with torties, we have so much detail here and so many different colors and patterns. And sometimes, to be honest, the larger you go, the more details you feel you have to add to make it be a general likeness of your cat. I do suggest if this is your first time painting a tortie or if you've painted a few cats before, but you're still testing things out, try it first on a five by seven, if it goes well, and you want to practice it again, maybe then try on an eight by ten. Remember that there is a tracing template that's included in the sutorial. You can either print it out on a regular sheet of paper and then use either a light box or a window to trace it. You can also print directly onto your watercolor paper if you have the back feeder, rear feed, and you're able to print with waterproof ink. You can check out my website if you want more information on how to print on watercolor paper. I like to paint on these plastic boards. I get them from Michael's. It's a full poster board, and then I cut them down to size. And then I use kiwi hub tape. This is specific for Watercolors around all four sides to hold my painting onto my plastic board. You can use an artboard, you can use a wooden panel, whatever you have at home. These are just lightweight. They're waterproof. They clean easily. It's kind of a nice little thing to have. Other supplies that you'll need. Once you sketch out your cat, you will need to mask the eye highlights. I like using Windsor and Newton masking fluid. I use an old brush that I make sure that I mark with masking tape. The highlighted areas that we're going to mask, there's a little highlight on the left side of each eye. There's also a little highlight on the nose that I do mask in the tutorial just to keep it preserved. It's not that bright of a highlight, but instead of risking losing it, I do mask it. Um, the rest of the cat, though, unlike my other tutorials, where I show you how to mask the whiskers, torties tend to have darker whiskers, and so I like to use a micron pen at the very end to add some little details to trace around the eyes and just kind of darken the eyes and the nose and the mouth, and then I add whiskers at the end. I did not add whiskers on the tracing template because there's a lot going on, and I didn't want to add to that. So you can add your own whiskers afterwards, using the reference photo. The other option that I did not add in the tutorial, I did not add to my painting is there's always the option to add white highlights at the end using bleed proof white gouache or a gel pen. If you wanted to skip the highlight of the e step and just use white gouache at the end, feel free to. You can also use white guash in some of the highlighted areas like above the eyes or if you aren't able to keep some of the highlights or the white hairs out of the ears, if you weren't able to keep those light enough in color, you can always add a little bit of bleed proof white at the very end. Brushes and paints while we are painting our tortie cat. For brushes, the majority of the painting, I'm going to be using a round size four anywhere between a size four, size six, even size two for some of the smaller details. I like size four for painting all of the fur, and I do like using a slightly larger brush for the fur. And not using a small detail brush because I do want to keep that fur a little bit more generalized. I don't like my paintings having very small tiny, fine hairs. You can choose to use a slightly larger brush for your fur or you can use a smaller brush if you want to see those individual hair details. This is a silver limited black velvet round size four. You might also choose a small detail brush for the eyes, nose and mouth, something similar to round size zero. This is an escota brush, um, like I said, you can also use that small detail brush fur. You will not see me using that in the tutorial. For water colors, whatever colors you have in your palette will work well. I am using all of my colors are Daniel Smith brand. The colors that you will notice me use quite a lot in the tutorial. I am using a quinacridone burnt orange. I need to replace it, as you can see. Any burnt orange or or quinacridone gold, anything that's leaning orange brown, rusty brown color is going to work well for you. If you don't have a burnt orange, you can use an orange and kind of muddy it up with a warm brown. So anything like an orange mixed with a piamintite genuine or some other sort of warmer brown color can also work well. You will also notice me using shadow violet, which I also need to replace. My shadow violet is right here. You can tell I use these colors a lot. Shadow violet is a granulating color that I use for all of the shadows. I also am using it for all of the black patches and the modeling for the first layer of my color, actually, for the first two layers of the dark modeled color. It is, like I said, a granulating color. It leans warm, so it's going to work really well with your oranges of your tortie cat. I'm also using it for the first layer of details in the eyes, nose and mouth. If you do not have shadow violet, you can mix up your own warm gray. You can use a Paine's gray just straight like that. You can add a little bit of the quinocrado burnt orange to your pains gray just to keep that color harmony. Then after our pains gray on top and the very end, we'll be using a black. I am using lunar black, which is another granulating color by Daniel Smith. I do like using granulating colors for my pet portraits. They do tend to model very nicely, and the grains will separate, the colors will separate. You get a little bit of texture. You also get multi Colors in the circumstance of shadow violet. And I think it looks really nice with pets because pet fur tends to have that little slight idscent quality, where in the sunlight, your pet will move and you might see some blues or some purples or some browns in their black fur. So I do think it works nicely. If you do not have a black granulating color like lunar black, you can use any black. Just know that your black might be a little darker than the black that I'm using. You might have to lighten it up with a little bit of water. And then I'm also going to be using a little bit of quinarcadon magenta for the pinks of the ears, and I believe that is it around the outside of the pet, at the very end, when it's time to paint the highlight or the splash of color, you can choose any colors. I used a carbizol violet mixed with a little bit of blue. I think I mix it with a little bit of indigo, just to give it more of a periwinkle purplish blue tone. And lastly, you might need to kind of offset your orange with a little bit of yellow. So I'm using a warm yellow. This is a gamboge from Daniel Smith. You might notice me adding a little bit of gamboge for the first layer of color for the orange that goes all over your cat. You might also need to glaze a little bit of orange for the fur. Oh, and the eye color, the iris color. Now this will depend on your cat. A lot of torties though, do have green eyes and Sap green works really well for tortie eyes because you've got that brighter yellowish green eye. If you have very, very light, you can also use something that's a little bit more of a lighter color like a green gold by Daniel Smith or you can drop in a little bit of yellow into that green. With the shadow of the eye way later on in the tutorial where we add a little bit of a shadow, a little bit of a second layer on that iris. You might use a deep sap green or something that's a little slightly darker, maybe even with a little hint of blue in there to turn it slightly more teal leaning than green. Obviously, that also depends on your cat. I think that's it. We will now get started with our tutorial. 3. First layer of Color: Alright, so like always, I like to start with the first layer and for the eyes, nose, and ears. So these are my lightest of colors. I'm going to start with the eye color first. So Cali has these bright green eyes. They're fairly light in color, so I'm using a sap green. And I already have, of course, my masking fluid in place. I'm just doing one layer of sap green on each eye. Now, I can always make these darker. I can drop in a little bit of yellow. If your torti cat has a little bit of yellow, I can drop in a little darker green if your torti has a little darker green, especially around the center pupil, or if the eyes are like, Cali very, very light, I can just leave one layer of light sap green. Next, I'm going to paint the first layer of Cali's nose. So I've mixed up a shadow violet here. Shadow violet is a warm gray. You can also mix your own gray at home. I just suggest not using black right away. I do have a little tiny bit of masking fluid over the highlight on the left section of the nose. I normally don't add highlights to my pet portrait noses, but I did in this instance, just because the face there is so dark in the nose area, I wanted to make sure that I kept that little highlight on the left hand side. So this is the only place that I'm adding. My masking fluid is the highlight of the eyes, and then this little tiny highlight in the nose. I'll paint one full layer of shadow violet all over the nose. I'll pull down that little center line between the nose and the mouth. And now I'm drying off my brush and lifting wherever I'm noticing highlights, so along the top of the nose. And then along this left side of the nose, it seems like the light is coming from the left side. Alright, moving on to the pinks of the ears. Now, I know there's not a ton of pink in Cali's ears. I'm going to kind of pump up that pink a little bit. So I've got some quinocrido magenta with quite a bit of water. I'm going to paint one solid line along the outer edge of the ear. I'm not going all the way to the edge because, of course, I've got a little bit of black at the outermost edge. And then whatever liquid is left in that line of pink, I'm going to then pull it inward. And what that's doing is it's creating some negative hairs, some negative white hairs that are sticking out. So I do the same thing on this right here. A line of pink on the outermost edge of the ear, and then I'm pulling some strands of pink inward. Now, it's important that you're pulling inward to the very center of that other triangle on the other side of the ear, and you're not pulling down towards the head. So just kind of be cautious about the angles there. Alright, so now I'm going to paint the first layer of fur. Now, with torti cats, being that you've got this dual tone fur, I do want to start with my lightest color of fur, and I want to paint that over the entire body of the cat. So I'm going to mix this tan. It's this orangish tan color. I just need to be very, very cautious that it's very light and transparent. So I'm adding quite a lot of water. I'm not focused here. At this point, I'm not focused on any fur strokes. I just want to get that color down over everything. Now, the only exception to this rule is if you have patches of white. So say you're painting more of a calico cat instead of a torti, you'd want to leave any of those sections of white open with your paper. But wherever the black is of my torti cat, I'm also painting that first layer of tan color. Now the reason I'm doing this is because I don't want to have any hard edges between my tan and my black. So I found if I paint just the tan where the tan is and just the black where the black is, I get this weird edge of paper where it doesn't quite overlap well, or I overlap my black over my tan, and then I get a third color out of that. So I get this darker ring. So I found that it works the best for me personally to paint this light layer of tan and then paint my blacks over this light layer of tan. Now, like I said, you just have to make sure that you keep this first layer really nice and light in color. So I'm looking around the chin area where it's the lightest tan, and that's the color I'm matching. I'm going to add more layers of this orangy tan, so I know that I can build up this color, but my first layer, wherever the black is, as well, needs to be really nice and light. Alright, the transition to the neck line and knowing where to stop, my painting can be a little challenging. So as I'm coming down into the neck, I'm making sure that my neck is connecting in the right location. So I've got it just right below that outermost cheek. And now I'm going to paint a thicker swath of this tan color, but I'm going to kind of feather it out. I'm also going to make this neck line be somewhat triangular. So I've got my point of my triangle that's immediately under the mouth. Having this kind of upside down triangle is going to really help with the shape of my painting. You can kind of see a natural downward triangle shape in the reference photo to begin with. I'm just going to that's where I'm going to be stopping my neck line. I've got that large chunk and now I'm just feathering out at that edge and trying to keep that general shape. I noticed that I forgot to paint the little tiny section of ear we want to make sure that everything is uniform. Okay, now that I've done this first layer of tan, you can go in and add a little bit of darker orange where you see it, where you notice it a little bit darker. This step, though, I want to be clear, this step can happen either now or it can happen after you add your blacks. I almost prefer adding it after I start placing my blacks only because then I can kind of know where exactly these darker oranges are going to be placed. So you might want to try it out at home and see what works best for you. You might want to do just one slightly darker layer of this orangy tan, and then your blacks, or you might want to do all of your shading with your blacks first. Now, where I'm doing this next layer of orange, I'm still keeping it fairly transparent. I'm not going as dark as I necessarily need to, and I'm only taking a peek at where am I finding these darkest of oranges. So on the right side of the face, around the eye, I'm also noticing it around the neck line there. This is where I'm keeping a really feathered hand. So I'm moving and making these lines, these fur lines in the direction that the fur is going. So around the eye, it's going in the direction around the eye. Here at the eyebrow, it's kind of going in the direction of the eyebrow. Under the neck, it's going in the direction of the neck. This is really important that your individual hairs here are going in the right direction. It's also important that you're leaving some of that underlayer of color to shine through. So we're not doing a full second layer of this color. We are letting some of that under tone shine through. So we're leaving space for that. Of course, as you're watching this section of the tutorial, I want to make note. Hopefully, it's apparent enough that the sections of my cat that are the darkest blacks, I am not painting a second layer of orange over that. This is where it can be tricky if you accidentally go over those sections of deep black with this orange color, you will see some of that orange color shine through because of the transparent nature of watercolors. This is where, again, I will re emphasize you can skip this step and do the orange layer later and do your black layers first. It all depends on what you want to place first and how you see the picture. If it's easier for you to place the Blacks, place the blacks first, skip this step, go to the next step and place the grays and blacks, and then come back and place your oranges. 4. First layer of Gray, part 1: Alright, now that we're ready with our oranges, now we're going to start with our first layer of gray. Now, I'm still using my shadow violet. I'm using it a little bit more concentrated because I'm going to start on the eyes. I do want to kind of block out the eyes, outline them, figure out how far that black extends before I start on the gray patches of fur. I just it helps me place the eyes and make sure that I have enough room. For any of the oranges around the eyes. So here I'm starting by outlining both of the eyes, and I'm looking at how thick that eyeliner is around my cat's eyes. This is going to vary depending on your cat, but I am noticing that there's a little bit thicker of eyeliner on the base of the eye underneath the eye. It's still following the curves of the eye here. It's a little bit thinner on the top. Now, when I paint the pupil of the eye, I'm starting small in kind of the center of that pupil, and then I'm bulging the pupil outward. I always like to start with gray at this stage because it helps me. It's a little bit easier to actually lift up that gray if I make a mistake. And now I'm going to continue around this left eye because I am noticing that there's quite a dark shape around the inside of this corner of the eye. And so I'm going to continue so that I don't have any hard edges here. I'm still using that same shadow violet gray. I'm making little hash marks as I'm moving around the eye. And these hash marks are connected. But the ends of these hash marks is what you're going to see in on top of the orange fur there. So I'm trying to kind of outline where I'm seeing the darkest of shapes, so you're noticing I'm outlining kind of these lines that I'm seeing around the eye, kind of going down towards the cheek and now into the nose. And I'm going to I'm basically working wherever I'm noticing my eye is taking me. So your progress and your progression on your torticat might look a little bit different. But I'm kind of looking at where are these darkest chunks of fur? And then it's helping to kind of guide my eye around. So I'm seeing there's a dark chunk on the left side of the mouth. When I'm getting to the edge of where that dark chunk is and where it's starting to turn into just a little bit of orange mottled with that gray, I can always dab my brush on my paper towel so it releases some of that gray. And then I'm just leaving a little bit more space in between those hash marks. And that's going to give you a little bit of that torti modeled look. Alright, so I'm going to continue working on the face. I'm looking at where are those darkest chunks? And I'm kind of then filling in those darkest chunks first. And then I'm moving on to those medium tones. And those medium tones, those lighter grays. Remember, I'm dabbing my brush on my paper towel, and then I'm extending that medium gray on top of that tan, and I'm making for more space. So more of that tan is shining through. Remember that we're not blending the edges at this point. So you'll notice all of my edges are hard edges. The only thing I am doing is if I have too much contrast, I might dry my brush and soak up some of that dark gray if it looks like there's too much contrast at this point. Remember also that you're following the curve of the face and the curve of the fur. So here where you're going underneath the eye, you're following those curve of the eye pain the curve of the eye with your paint brush. When you go around the nose, you're following the curve of the nose. When you go around the cheek, you're following the curve of the cheek. So we're just doing these little dash marks. We're connecting the dash marks, and then we're making lighter dash marks and more space in between where it's a lighter gray. Now, I'm going to keep this video on real time. I don't want to speed this up because I do want you to see how I'm creating the different tones with this gray and where it might be a little darker and a little lighter in between. So this is a good example of I did the darkest spot. I tapped my brush on my paper towel, and now I'm coming up and in the corner of the eye, which is a little lighter of gray, and my brush doesn't have as much liquid on it, so it's gonna be a little bit lighter in transparency. So I'm constantly correcting how transparent my color is by either tapping it on my paper towel, adding just a little bit of water or grabbing a little bit more pigment, okay? So this first layer of gray is going to be the most challenging. So take your time as you're doing this first layer. As we get to the section around the mouth, it's important that you are not connecting that smile line to the outer edge of the cheek, otherwise it might look a little bit too joker like. Then when we're adding the dark dots by where the whiskers are, our dots are going to be darkest on cats on the outermost cheek. And then as they come inward, your dots get lighter. This is the opposite for dogs. Dogs, it's darkest in the center of the nose, and it gets lighter as you go outward. Cats is the opposite. It's the darkest on the outside, and then it gets lighter as you come inward. To lighten up those dots, you can dry your brush and lift after you've added that pigment, you can tap it with your paper towel or you can just add water to your brush to make it a little bit lighter. Alright, so with this neck line, we have to figure out how we're going to stop the neck. So as I'm painting the neck line, remember, I'm doing like blobs of color in the center, and then I'm looking at pulling some of that color upward, and then I'm pulling some of that color downward. The direction that you pull your brush does matter. So I'm trying my best to kind of curve the fur here along the bottom edge. So I'm curving it with that triangle inward. I'm kind of making this up. I see that big dark spot on my reference photo, but the bottom edge of that spot, I'm making up. So I might add a few individual strands there of dark fur just to kind of connect it at the base and turn it into a little bit more of a triangular neckline. 5. First layer of Gray, Part 2: Now, remember when you're working in a section like the left cheek here, where you notice that it's not fully dark, I suggest that you start painting in the darkest spot that you see. So this kind of lower left corner of the cheek is where I'm noticing the darkest. And then after I fill in that darkest shape, now I blot my paper towel and I brush on my paper towel so I have less liquid and less paint, and now I can go in and add some of those strokes where it's a little bit lighter. Okay, so I'm only leaving a few sections completely open with that tan undercolor. But a lot of this lower cheek here is that model defect. So I am going to add dash marks on top, but I'm following the shape of the cheek here. So I'm following that U shape of the cheek. I'm just making sure that I'm leaving that little section to the lower left of the eye that I'm leaving that without any gray. That's where I'm noticing the brightest of highlight. So I'm just kind of outlining it now to make sure I don't go over it. And now I'm doing these hash marks in a U shape under the eye. Now, as I've been painting, I noticed that section that's the darkest just got diluted a little bit, so I might go back in and add a little bit more color on top just so that it's differentiated from the lighter gray. You can either do that in the same step or you can come back and do your darker grays in a later step. Alright, same thing as I come around the top of the eye here. I'm trying to keep clean that section above the eye that's really nice and bright tan. And then I'm noticing it's really dark above that section. So I'm still continuing these hash mark lines. They're a little bit longer of lines now extending all the way to the ear and to this little highlight above the eye. Um, and I'm trying my best just to keep that general shape open. Now, there's some little tiny patches of tan right next to the ear that if I can't keep those open, I'm not going to stress over it. Torticats are challenging to paint. So we're looking at what are the largest of these orange patches and to preserve those. Some of the smaller orange patches you can try your best to preserve, but honestly, it's not going to make or break your painting if you have some of those little tinier ones that you accidentally cover. Now, I am stopping at the top of the head, and I am doing a horizontal line across the top of the head. I don't want these little wispy hairs to poke out of the top of the head. I want that to be really nice and clean. Now, what you're noticing me do is I'm going back with just the tiniest amount of gray on my brush, and I'm coming through and I'm kind of fixing some of these edges, and I'm also pulling a little bit of that really light gray through those gray through those tan patches. So what this is doing is it's just helping to connect and to, um to keep those tan patches from looking like they're just placed on top of the fur. So these sections are still slightly wet and actually, I want that. I want to be able to pull some of that liquid across. And that's how I'm softening up the edges. I'm not blending them out, but I am kind of taking a little bit of that light gray inside those patches just to kind of set them into the face instead of sitting on top of the face. Hopefully, that makes sense. All right, as we make our way to our ear, I'm first going to do that layer of gray in between where the ear is attached to the head. Now I'm outlining with this gray around the entire ear. Before I finish with the outline, I can always pull a few strands of gray outward. Okay. And then I'm going to do the outer edge of the ear, still outlining with that gray, and then from there, I'll pull some strands in. So it's important that you're pulling this gray out and you're pulling it in. And that's going to give you the effect of these little whiter hairs that are coming out of your ear. So I know I'm kind of jumping around here. Basically, when I'm painting tortis, I'm really allowing my eye to jump from dark spot to dark spot, and I'm constantly going back and forth from my reference to my painting. And if I'm noticing an area that's too bright, like, here, I noticed this area under the left chin is too bright. And so I'm coming in with a little bit of of that gray. It kind of dulled down that section a little bit. It was just there wasn't enough contrast. It was sticking out a little bit too much. So I'm adding some extra little gray so that it doesn't look like it's sitting on top of the fur. Sometimes when we have too much contrast and we don't blend the two colors together with this lighter gray, sometimes it looks like too patchy. So if yours is starting to look a little too patchy, you can go in with the lighter gray in on top of those tan patches and those orange patches. And you can add just some really fine little light gray lines, and it's going to connect your patches to the gray so it doesn't look like it's too much contrast. And the same thing with this left ear, we pulled some strands in from the outside, and now we're pulling some strands out. So we're going on the inside and pulling some outward. And this is creating the negatively painting these white hairs that are coming out from the ear. Now, if this is hard for you and you end up covering up some of those white hairs, we can always use some white gouache or some bleed proof white afterwards to kind of add some of those hairs in that got lost. But I do really suggest that you try this technique of pulling in, pulling some hairs inward and pulling some hairs outward, because I do really feel like it makes a difference in your painting when you have that paper shining through instead of whitewash. 6. Color Corrections: Mm. Alright, so before I do any color corrections, I want to go back in and darken up the nose a little bit. This is going to help to have that nose pop slightly from all of the chaos that's kind of going on around the nose. So I'm finding that center line in the nose, and then I'm also finding where my highlight is. So I'm noticing that there's a highlight on the left side of the nose. So I'm going to try my best to keep that highlight open, but I am going to darken the nose just to make sure that you can see it. Now, this stage might be something that depending on your picture at home of your cat, you might have to kind of just make this up. So we do want to make sure that we can see the edge of the nose. So sometimes with tortie cats, on the darkest edge there, you might not be able to see where the nose ends and where that black fur starts. But we do want to make sure that you can see that in your painting. So I do definitely suggest that you go back in and you outline the nose a little bit, at least where it's the darkest. Um, I'm going back, and I'm also going to add just a little bit of light gray to the bottom of that lower lip and that chin there. It just is kind of sticking out a little bit too much for me. So I'm going to add just a little bit more color to the eyes. I'm using some sap green and a little bit of blue to turn it slightly turquoise. And here, my goal isn't to cover the first layer that I painted, but to add just a little extra second layer. So I'm looking at where these darkest sections are on the eye. So there's, like, a little U on the underside, and then there's a little section on the right of that pupil. On the left eye, it's a little bit more challenging because it is in shadow. I'm not going to paint the whole shadow, that eye in shadow. If I paint that eye in shadow, it might look a little awkward for my painting. So I'm just trying to look at where the darkest tones of that green are. I don't want to put the whole eye in shadow. And, of course, once those little sections are wet, you can adjust them. So while it's still wet, I'm going to take a little bit of that green directly from my pan, a little dark green, and I'm going to drop it in that wet section just to darken it up a little bit. So I can control the darkness and the color while it's wet either by dropping in more or lifting it up. Adding a little bit more colour correction here, so I'm using a little bit more of my quinacridone magenta and adding a little bit more pink to the outer edge of both ears. Alright, we're going to continue on with the color corrections with the orange fur. But before we do that, I noticed I'm not really happy with the neck line, so I'm going to add just a little chunk of gray to the base of the neck. I want this neck line to be a little bit more triangular. It's looking a little bit too flat for me. So I'm gonna go in and just add a little bit more just to kind of correct the shape, and then I'll move on to my color correction with the orange. Alright, so I'm still keeping this layer quite transparent. So I'm using water and adding a little bit of that kind of burnt orange color. The key here is that you're looking at glazing a little bit more orange where you think it needs it. Remember that glazing is a very transparent layer. We want the color to be in the sections that we want. We can go over the black or the gray parts, excuse me. But we want to kind of add just a little bit more depth where we're missing some of that orange. So I'm going in the corners of the eyes. I'm looking at under the cheeks, doesn't need any more. I'm wanting to do the color corrections at this stage before I add the black because the black is what's going to unify everything. So I can go over the gray. It will slightly change the color of the gray. So only do this in sections where you're noticing that gray is slightly orange tinted. But it's really important that you're doing these color corrections at this stage instead of at the very end after you're black. You want to do it in between so that the black is the last layer that seals all the details and seals all of the shapes where they should go. 7. Black Layer: Alright, so for my black layer of color, I'm using lunar black by Daniel Smith. This black is a granulating color. What I like about using lunar black is that it will still you'll still be able to see the colors that are underneath. So if you are heavy handed, I do feel like lunar black is a great place for you to start. Now, we're going to start with lunar black fairly opaque. I'm still adding water to it, though. I'm not using it directly from my pan. And now, I'm starting where I want the blacks to be the darkest. And so that's the features of my cat around the eyes and in the pupils, as well as now the nose and mouth. As I move down to the nose, I'm outlining the lower V of the nose. So on each side of the nose, that V that you see, I'm outlining that. And then I'm filling in a little bit of the inside of the nose on the right side where it's the darkest. Now, after outlining my eyes, pupils and nose, now I'm going to move on to where I'm noticing the darkest blacks in my tortie. We do want to move and use that pigment in multiple areas of our tortie. If we're only using it in one section, your eye is going to be drawn to that one section. So even if you're not if you're using if you only have one patch of really, really dark, for a your tortie, you're still going to want to lighten up that black color and use it around on some of the lighter areas. Callie, this tortie is fairly evenly dispersed of the black patches. So I'm starting where I'm noticing it the darkest, which is going to be around the ears. I'm noticing this darkest patch above the eyes. Now, I still want to leave some of that under tone, some of that gray to shine through. So I'm going to try my best to not have solid patches of black, but to kind of allow some of that gray to shine through at insections. Alright, one thing to note as we're moving along with our black layer is that you don't need to be blending the edges of your black and your like the black going into your lighter sections. We're going to have a step after you add the black, where we blend where you need to. So I try to keep myself from blending at this stage. Obviously, I'm adding these strokes in the right direction. But if the edges are looking really harsh at this point, that's okay. I will blend after my black is all laid down. So as I start working on the forehead, this is one of the more challenging spots because it's fairly dark. I'm using a very watered down, so it's quite watery. It's not watered down, but it's quite liquidy. The reason I'm doing that is because then I can adjust the amount of black that's left on my paper by simply touching my brush, drying my brush off, and lifting up any of that black if it gets too dark. There's a difference between using a dark black with little amount of water and a dark black with a lot amount of water. And this is the difference here. If you use a little bit amount of water and mostly pigment, you're going to get these lines that you won't be able to lift. They're going to look very, very sharp and hard edges versus if you're using a lot of pigment, but also water with it. When we keep that water in our dark black pigment, we give ourselves the ability to still lift the pigment if it gets too dark in any section. So this is why I'm not using that black directly from my palette I have it mixed with water. It's still an opaque black. It's still dark, but it's mixed with water so that I can control it a little bit better once it's on the paper. 8. Blending with water and adding a shadow in the Eyes: Alright, now that we've finished with our layer of black, now I'm going to just grab some water on my brush. It's a clean brush with just a little bit of water. Now I'm going in on top of where these edges are happening between my black and my grays and my oranges. And I'm using water just to blend some of those edges. Sometimes our black can be a little bit too harsh. And so we can use just water to blend out those edges where we're noticing it's a little bit too hard of edges. Now, this is another reason why I love using lunar black. There are some blacks that because they're not granulating, they tend to not lift as easily as lunar black does. Lunar black lifts really well. And shadow violet, which is your gray underneath, also lifts very well. And so we can adjust not only the edges, but we can also adjust the shape of the black. When we paint it, if you paint in the wrong with the wrong brush stroke in the wrong direction, we can actually adjust that using a wet brush. So this whole section, I'm just using a wet brush. I'm using a wet brush against those edges where maybe the white and orange fur that's sticking into the black, maybe that's a little bit too intense. I can use that white brush to just soften it slightly. Now, don't over soften. You still want those hard edges because that's what makes it look like fur. But this is going to be where you can let your cat shine stylistically. Maybe you do want these edges to be softer than what I have. So you can soften, as much as you need to. And, of course, as I started softening, I noticed a little area that maybe should be a little darker. So I'm just adding a little bit more of that shadow violet just to darken up this section. So it's a mix of blending and color correcting at this point. Alright, the last little step here that I'm going to do is add a little shadow to the upper lid of the eye. So I've got shadow violet, and I'm just painting an arch along on top of the colored section of the iris over the pupil. It's just a little rainbow arch on top. And what that does is it's going to set the eye that eyeball into the eye socket. Now, you notice that I'm not adding shadow completely covering that right eye. I don't want to add that shadow or might look awkward. So I'm just adding a little bit of shadow on that upper lid just to set the eye in. 9. Optional Color Splash and Final Details: Alright, now we have an optional step. You can add a colorful splash in the background behind your pet. With torties, I definitely suggest the color doesn't have to be like a light color versus a dark color, but the opacity should be fairly transparent. So I'm using a purple, which goes really well with this tannish orangy color, and I'm mixing quite a bit of water, so it's nice and transparent. I'm painting this in little chunks around the outside of my cat. I'm starting with a little bit of water where I want that pigment and then dropping my pigment in just to keep it wet a little bit longer so that I can adjust the edges. So I'll drop the pigment closest to the body, and then I'll dry my brush off and kind of soften up the edge a little bit. I'm going to do that all around my cat. Knowing how far to extend this color is tricky. And my main suggestion to you is to look more at the white space that you have so I'm making sure that I still have even amounts of white space around my portrait. So I'm going to be putting some purple around the ears and just a little hint under the head in that triangle space there. But when I look at the white space, I want to try to keep an even amount of white space all around my portrait. Alright, so I let the background color dry totally, and now I'm ready for the final details. So I'm going to start by taking off the masking fluid. Remember that masking fluid was covering the highlights of the eyes, as well as we've got a little bit on the highlight of the nose. Then I'm going to switch to using a micron pen. So Micron pens, Black micron pens are great ways to add extra fine detail, especially to our kind of darker more details in our darker cats. So I'm using a black micron pen to add some whiskers. Most torties, you can't see the white. They don't look white, like some of our cats do, where we add masking fluid for white whiskers, instead, they look really dark. And so I'm just adding some dark whiskers there. I can also use my micron pen to make any sort of adjustments or to fill in any section of the eye or adjust the highlight. So here I'm using my micron pen to just outline that top eyelid and to fix the highlights if there was any section of the highlight that needs a little adjustment. And with that highlight of the nose, it's now looking a little bit too bright of a highlight. And so I'm just using a little bit of shadow violet with a wet brush just to tone down that highlight. I still want to keep it, but I just want to tone it down a little. Congratulations on painting one of the most challenging cats to paint in watercolors.