Watercolour dog painting process:
Hello all! I'm back with another dog painting process :)
I was pleasantly surprised and SUPER ecstatic when my last post got 90+ upvotes! OH MY GOODNESS!!! Thank you all for the support and positive feedback! I appreciate it so much!
I hope you don't mind me making another dog painting progress post. I want to improve my pet painting skills so I've been painting more dogs and cats lately.
As always (for portraits) I start off with making a sketch in my sketchbook. I used a reference photo for the sketch. I wasn't super happy with the sketch and thought the eyes were too high on the face... so when I was tracing my sketch I just moved the tracing paper up to trace the eyes once I got the face outline done, then transferred it onto my watercolour paper.
First layer. I chose to paint wet-on-wet so that I can achieve seamless colour transitions and lost edges that often exceed the outline of my subject. I used alizarin crimson, raw sienna, and manganese blue hue for this painting.
On the second layer I started to work on the eyes, nose/muzzle, and adding definition to the ears.
Third layer. Continued to work on to the eyes, ears, and nose. I added more colour to the background, sticking with the three colours I chose. When you continue the same colours in multiple areas of a painting, it helps with harmony and unity within the piece.
I had added one more layer to the face to build up the shadows and started to darken the eyes.
I didn't like how the eyes looked, so I lifted some of the raw sienna and was happy with the outcome. By lifting some of the colour from the eyes, I achieved a glassy and more dimensional appearance.
Added the pupils to the eyes, but I had a hard time getting the right "look"... so I had to do some more lifting and repainting. Also did some lifting on the chin and fur around the ears. I just painted a suggestion of the neck because I wanted the focus to be on the face/head.
Once I was finished, I added some white whiskers with a gel pen. That white gel pen sure is handy!
I hope you enjoyed this post! Please feel free to give feedback and/or ask me questions.
Thank you for stopping by,
Cheyenne