Watercolor Bear Painting Tutorial - Grizzly Bear Cub Step by Step

Hi guys, I'm Emily. Welcome to my channel. A few months ago I posted a time-lapse video of a little grizzly bear cub and I've been getting lots of questions asking, do you have a full-length tutorial? For today's video I decided to do a new version of my grizzly bear cub and you'll be able to follow along from start to finish, step by step. If you'd like to paint along with me you can download my reference photo and sketch in the link below. I begin with a light sketch. When drawing on the outline I leave some edges blank where I'm planning on the fur being lighter and almost disappearing into the background. I use a clean brush to wet the bear allowing the water to bleed a little past my outline. When I go in with paint the paint will go where the water goes and I want some of my edges to look fuzzy so as I quickly drop in a brown mixture of paint I drop the paint in almost up to the wet edges allowing the paint and water to move together creating this effortless fuzzy fur texture. While the paint is still wet I mix up some burnt sienna and alizarin crimson to drop some warm hints of color into the bear's face. My paints today by the way are the Winsor & Newton Cotman set. I'll include a list in the description of all the supplies I used for this painting. At this point I am keeping everything loose painting wet and wet. This initial wash of color will be a lovely base layer for when I go in and add darker values and more details later. It's time to go darker. The ears are a great place to begin adding deeper shadows. My dark brown is a mixture of Payne's gray, burnt sienna, and alizarin. I can mix in some black to make the ears even darker. I am really careful not to let any hard or unnatural looking edges form around the ears. You see me frequently softening edges with a clean damp brush and bringing in more fur texture with the splayed bristles of my round brush. I move down to the fur area below the bear's head using a rich warm brown avoiding strands of fur here and there. I want to leave some highlights in the fur for a more realistic look. If I paint using the broad side of my brush I can work with the texture of the paper so some of the highlights can result from a dry brush technique raked across the surface. If you look at my reference photo you can see I just took a grizzly cub photo and had to do some rather poorly done photoshop work to get the shape and pose I wanted for my bear cub. Remember the photo doesn't have to be perfect to make a good painting. You can always fix areas that are lacking during the painting process. There is always a point or maybe several points during the painting process where I think, oh no is it even worth my time to continue? If you feel like this too don't worry you can push through. Every painting goes through an ugly phase. Don't give up and if you get to the end and you still think it's ugly well you can always paint another one. The key to painting a realistic furry animal is patience. Working with quick short brush strokes and small brushes you can create a very convincing fur texture. I definitely go the slowest when I'm painting the crucial details like the eyes. The eyes need to be symmetrical, the values need to be dark enough, and I must be careful not to paint over the highlights. I always paint the fur around the eye right away so that I can more easily blend it together. Having the black eyes painted in early on helps me better see how much or how little I need to darken the rest of the bear. Now that the chest has dried I can go in with an even darker layer of fur textures. I always work in layers when painting heavy coats of fur. This gives it depth and color variety. Because I'm right-handed naturally I tend to work left to right when painting to avoid dragging my arm through wet washes but fortunately watercolor dries quickly so if you prefer to jump around in a painting watercolor is a good medium for that. My bear's nose has a cool blue tone to it so I add a light wash of ultramarine. I continue to add more small brush strokes for fur details and refine the eyes some more. Before doing the forehead I re-wet the whole area. I want the fur to look softer and fuzzier here. I paint in the other eye using a small round brush. I keep adding layer after layer of small brush strokes and varying shades and values always painting in the direction that the fur is growing. The right side of the bear is more in the light. I paint in this area a little looser with quicker broader brush strokes. For the nose I start with the top which is in the light, paint on a light wash of ultramarine avoiding the highlights. While this is still wet I quickly paint in a shadow on the left side letting it blend wet into wet. Then paint the large nostrils with pure black. I dip my brush in water to make the color less intense then do the furry black muzzle beneath the nose using the splayed bristles of a round brush. To create a convincing transition from light to dark across the bear's face I need to deepen the shadows inside the eye sockets with more brown and also darken the left side of the white muzzle. I do this with a watered down mixture of blue and black. A few more details in the nose make it look even more real. If you'd like to learn more about painting fur in watercolor you can check out my five tips and tricks for painting fur and if you'd like to see the process in real time check out my three-part video series on painting puppy fur in watercolor. I hope you enjoyed this video. If you did please be sure to hit the like button and subscribe if you're new here and also turn on the bell so you never miss any new videos. I'll be posting new content every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday and if you have any questions please leave me a comment below and share with all your friends who are interested in watercolor. Thank you so much for watching!