Watercolor Pet Portrait Tutorial - How to Paint a Dog with Watercolour

Hi guys! Welcome to my channel. My name is Emily. Let me introduce you to Poppy, a 13-year-old puggle much beloved by his family in Utah. Today I'll show you how I painted Poppy's portrait step-by-step from start to finish and be sure to watch to the end so you see some really fun background techniques. There aren't any rules for how to start a painting, but with the majority of my dog paintings I start with a light wash of color using the wet and wet technique. Using my large Princeton Neptune size 12 round brush I wet the paper inside the drawing just avoiding the eyes and mouth. I mix up a light mixture of burnt sienna and water to paint in the first layer of color, avoiding the light areas around the ears and eyes and adding a few fur texture brush strokes at the top of the head. My board is tilted at about a 30 degree angle so some of the pigment runs downward in the left ear and neck and I really like how that looks. I mix up some indigo and burnt umber to create a dark gray and start to paint in the left ear. I'm defining the inside edge of the ear constantly looking at my reference photo to help me see which areas are darker and lighter and also carefully noting any color or temperature changes. I sometimes flay the bristles of the brush to add a toothy fur texture. There are so many colors and textures just in this one ear. It's just so much fun. So far I've only used three colors- indigo, burnt umber, and burnt sienna. These three are pretty much staples of my pet painting palette. I've strategically left some white hairs unpainted in the ear. You can use resist crayons or masking fluid for areas like that too but sometimes I just like the challenge of painting around the highlights. I'm darkening the defining features of Poppy's forehead using pure burnt sienna. I use wider brush strokes and more watered-down paint to block in shadow areas and paint a light first layer on the nose. Using indigo I darken the ear and start to add some neck shadows. Because Poppy is wearing a bandana in the reference photo I had to make up some of the neck from imagination. I also had some supplemental reference photos to help me with that too. For a more realistic portrait be strategic about where you choose to add more detailed fur. I don't try to do photographic looking fur all over the portrait. This would be way too time consuming and the result would look busy and contrived. Painting some smoother areas of fur with a blended wet and wet technique and doing small key areas with more detail gives the painting variety and interest. I like to listen to audiobooks while I'm painting. It helps me stay focused and just get lost in the joy of the process. I like to block in all of my basic shadow shapes before jumping into any details like the eyes and mouth. This makes it easier to blend those dark areas together so they look like organic parts of the face that belong rather than button eyes that are just stuck on. Again it's smart to work light to dark, layering more pigment once you're confident in your color and drawing choices. For the details of the face I generally use small round brushes. I go ahead and paint the eyes with a size 0 or a 1 round brush using lamp black for the deepest shadow shapes. While this rich black is still wet I can drop in some burnt umber which will blend slightly into the black. The top portion of the eye is reflecting light. I carefully paint in a light gray avoiding the tiny white highlight. The fur texture around the eyes must be painted slowly and carefully. I observe the reference photo and always use brush strokes that reflect the direction in which the fur is growing. I'm starting the mouth next. The teeth are rarely pure white and Poppy's teeth are slightly yellowed and since the back teeth are in shadow I need to paint them even darker. I paint in the shape of the mouth then move down to the neck and add some more fur details, shadows, and details that make it feel unified with the mouth. For the tongue I'm using alizarin crimson and some quinacridone rose. It's slightly watered down and I'm intentionally dulling it a little with indigo. I paint in the deep shadow blending it wet into wet into the pink tongue and I add a little more alizarin to make the value transition more gradual. Adding some gray shades and whiskers to the muzzle really helps the dog start to look lifelike. I paint some more details in the tongue and teeth. The teeth are a very light brown with just a few white highlights left untouched. They look nice and shiny. The nose is pure lamp black. Water down where the light hits the rims around the nostrils. Just like with the eyes I try to do the fur around the nose while the paint is still wet so that it is all connected and blended and I can actually take a bristle brush and just pull some of the paint out away from the nose creating that fuzzy texture around the nose. I add the dots on the muzzle. They're going to be darker and larger closer to the nose and start to fade as they move away. For whiskers you need a tiny brush and fairly watered down paint. Big black broad brush strokes applied with a heavy hand will make your dog look cartoony so don't go crazy with the whiskers. I paint the right eye using the same techniques as with the first eye. One of my favorite things to do with the background is to paint it with a flat brush using quick wet brush strokes. I like to let it bleed into some areas of the dog too so that it all feels uniform and connected. During the process of painting the portrait doing the details the eyes and the nose I worked really slowly and cautiously. The background is a really great space to play more to add drips and spatters and enjoy more of the medium's endless possibilities. Just be sure to protect any areas you don't want to paint over. To get the drip effect just hold your board upright and let gravity work. Play with the shapes until you're happy and just have fun. If you enjoyed this video be sure to hit the like button and subscribe if you're new here and hit the bell so you never miss a new video. I will be posting new videos every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. Thank you so much for