Dog on the Beach in Soft Pastel - Timelapse

Hi everyone, welcome to my channel and to this time-lapse version of a very serene beach-themed dog portrait in Soft Pastel. I hope that you enjoy this here. If you do, then please do hit subscribe here on YouTube and check out all of my other playlists. And then if you want lots of real-time tutorials in Soft Pastel on lots of different subjects, do check me out over on Patreon. I'll add the links in the description. This piece is 17 by 13 inches and I'm working on the brown colour of Pastelmat. Here you can see the selection of colours that I laid out before I started. I'm using mostly Unison Soft Pastels with a few Terry Ludwigs and a small selection of Pastel pencils too. Now the first thing that I start with, as always, is whatever is going on in the background. And in this case, the background was so peaceful and serene, I really wanted to try and capture that. And to do that, I chose a very serene palette of colours. And I really wanted to capture the peaceful mood that I sense from the photo reference of this one. So it's one of those beautiful days where you get brightness, but at the same time, not really direct sunlight. It's a more diffused kind of lighting. And of course, that is affecting everything. It's creating this very dreamy sky, the lovely pale soft colours in the water, everything's very calm. And that's exactly what I wanted to try and capture in this portrait. So the main focus, of course, is the lovely dog in the middle. This is Carlos, and he is a much missed dog. And I really wanted to try and create something special of him. You can see in the photo reference that he is actually squinting, so he's got his eyes closed. And I did something that I'm always telling my students to avoid doing. I worked from a few different photo references to try and create this lovely pose of him, but with his eyes open. So I'm always preaching at my students to be quite fussy about the photo reference that they accept when it comes to doing commissions, to be very careful when having to draw from different photo references, especially when it comes to creating facial features, as it can so easily go askew, especially when you don't know the dog or the animal in person. So in this case, I really tried my hardest with this, looking at lots of different photo references, videos, as much material as I could to try and get a sense of Carlos and to try and piece together what his eyes would really look like when open at this angle. So a very peaceful sky, nice dreamy clouds. The photo reference, apart from the closed eyes, really was beautiful, and I knew that this could make a very nice portrait. So once I'm done with the sky and the water and I've worked a little bit of the distant sand just down at the shoreline, then I decide to make a start on Carlos, because I'm quite aware that the face means everything in this portrait, and I'm also a little bit anxious as to how the eyes are going to work out. So as soon as I get the opportunity, I start working on his face. And you can see the main thing that I want when I'm starting on the background is to get the areas in behind the animal or the main subject, whatever it might be. And in this case, I can now make a start on his head because I've got the background area worked, and I can just continue downwards like that. When I get the face done, then I can work a bit more of the sand and sort of edge my way downwards in the portrait. So sometimes I get asked why I don't work the entire portrait at once, and sometimes I do. With landscapes and different subject matters, there are times when I work the entire piece at once rather than a little bit at a time, like I'm doing here. But quite often with the pet portraits, I like to focus on one place at a time, and I'm usually layering that up from background to foreground, everything sitting nicely on top of the previous layer. And you can see when I'm working in a more detailed way, quite often I am also leaning my hand just below where I'm working. So you can see the smudges there just below his collar, and that's where I'm leaning my hand while I make some of the smallest details. So if I were working the entire piece at once, it would mean that I'm smudging quite a lot of the work that I've already done. So working from top to bottom like this on the more detailed pieces just makes a bit more sense for me. So lots and lots of colours going into his face. There's a beautiful sense of light and shade in the reference. As I said, it's quite diffused lighting, it's really soft. But we do get a sense of the main light source coming from the left side of the image. And we get a lot more highlights coming down that left side of Carlos. And then for the rest of his face, which is actually the majority of his face, it's really only a small area down the left side of everything where we get the light source. The rest of it really is all shades of blues and more dusky colours to indicate the shadows. So the colour selection really means everything. That's how I'm describing the light and shade. And the light and shade is I am describing his 3D form. So no matter what it is that I'm painting, it's always the light that I'm actually painting. It's the light that helps me to describe the 3D form of anything that I'm painting. So determining where the light is coming from is always the first thing that I'll do. And that guides my colour choices and my value choices for the rest of the painting. So here on the legs, you can see the shadow colours in underneath and then a little strip of brightness along the top of the paw where it's catching the light. And we get the same coming down the left side of his chest or the front of his chest. We get that lovely bright band of fur. It's almost glowing. But then to contrast that in the more shadow areas on the fur, you've really got to choose darker values. If you want somewhere to glow in your painting, then you've got to create contrast. There's only so bright that you can go with pure white. And what will actually make something look brighter is if the surrounding areas contrast that brightness. So lots and lots of colours going through his fur. And little bits of pastel pencil popping up here and there, but not so much. It's mostly with the soft pastel sticks that I create all of the fur. And to be honest, it's not as detailed as you might think. I'm really not trying to make tiny, tiny marks. I'm certainly not attempting to paint every single individual hair. So the chunkier marks from the pastel sticks are absolutely fine. So making my way down now towards the sand. And I still hadn't really decided what I was going to do with the whole foreground. Was I just going to hint at a bit of texture of the sand? Or was I going to actually start making dots and start painting grains of sand? And I kind of decided somewhere in between. So as we come right down into the foreground, I did decide to start making dots. And this happens quite quickly. It looks extremely laborious. But actually, you can make quite a significant number of dots in a short amount of time using the soft pastel sticks. And I just start layering up all of these colours, thinking about where the light and shade is again. So where does Carlos cast a shadow on the sand? And I choose my colours and my values accordingly. So darker colours going into these areas of shadow on the sand. Trying to create some of the the divots and the shapes that we get along the surface of the sand as well. But just layer after layer of these dots. And working my way up towards the lightest value. So the final layer really picking out some of the top texture on the sand. So it looks more laborious than it really was. And I tried to ease off on the detail as we go back behind Carlos. So it's really just here in the immediate foreground. So a really serene picture to create. I loved working on this. I could have spent a lot longer just looking at lovely Carlos. I hope that you've enjoyed seeing it come together here in time lapse. Let me know if you'd like some real time tutorials on this piece. Perhaps you'd like to see how I created the sand in real time. But thanks very much for watching. Please remember to hit subscribe and until next time, happy pasteling.