Scooter and Riley Lesson 24

Ah, the finished piece! I only wish that Scooter and Riley could enjoy this as much as I have enjoyed painting it!

If you would like to paint along with my blog lessons, you can get the photo references and drawings sent to you by visiting my etsy shop, clicking on the Online Lesson icon, and pay a small fee of $5.00. I will then email all the photo references and drawings to you. Some people have found it helpful to order the references, then print the daily blog lessons, and begin when the online postings are complete. That way, they know what is coming next and they can see what the finished piece may look like.

If you are local to Melbourne, Florida, I also teach classes and workshops locally. Check out my Classes page on my website for more information.

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Scooter and Riley Lesson 23

At this stage I am close to having a finished painting. I spend some time just looking at the piece, in a space other than where I painted it. I make notes, yes, I write them down. I note areas that need to be darkened, lightened, warmed up, cooled down. I note where there are areas that bother me. I turn the piece upside down and check my values, shapes and colors. Then I tweak any areas that need tweaking.

When I feel like I am almost done, I stop. If I work until I think I am done, then I find that I have overworked the painting. Once I sign the piece I won't allow myself to work on it anymore. That forces me to stop and then I can get excited about my next piece!

Scooter and Riley Lesson 22

Now it is time to add some texture to the pillows. I sketched in a simple vine and leaf pattern onto the pillow, making sure the pattern followed the contour of the rounded pillows. If you are painting along with this lesson, you will see that you have a guide to use for this pattern. You may choose to use a different pattern if you like.

I used my number six round brush and my number 6 Fritch Scrubber to gently lift out a subtle pattern in the pillow. I like this technique for this type of application because it lifts only some of the color and the edges of the lifted areas are soft. If they were very crisp they may take away from the focal point of the dog's faces.

To lift, I simply dipped my brush in water, and, using a very light touch, rubbed tiny areas with the damp brush and then quickly dabbed the area with a paper towel. Be gentle and don't overdo this step. Too much lifting will make your watercolor look more like a pastel.

Scooter and Riley Lesson 21

Scooter and Riley seemed to be floating a bit too much for me so I used the mixture that I just added to the background to create a shadow under the dogs.

I wet the area first, applying water beyond the point that I knew I wanted the shadow to be. Then I used a number 10 round brush and applied a strong pigment into the water, along the very edge of the dog and the brown couch (or whatever it is they are sitting on).

The water softened the edges. I kept the board tipped so that the strongest color stayed at the dark shadowed edges of the dog's bodies, and the water flowed into the pigment, rather that allowing the pigment to flow into the water.

Be sure that when you create the shadow areas under the dogs that the shadow falls on the opposite side of the light source. My light source is on the upper left, so my shadows all had to fall on the lower right.

Scooter and Riley Lesson 20

After looking at this piece I realized that I wanted the background value to be much darker to help draw the viewer's eye to the dogs, my focal point. I mixed some Perylene Green into the mixture that I used for the brown area under the dogs to create a wet, rich color for the background. I applied a wash of clear water to the background then, I dripped color from this mixture into the wet background area.

I used strong color and allowed it to flow around by tipping my board. I didn't want to completely cover the gold in the background, but I wanted the gold to shine through here and there. Once I dripped in some color here and there, especially along the edges of the pillows and over the dark areas at the sides of the painting, I put my brush down and just tipped the board to allow the pigment to soften and flow.

When working wet-in-wet with watercolor, the brush is used to drop in the paint, but water and gravity do most of the work.

Scooter and Riley Lesson 19

Now the values in this painting are really beginning to take shape.

I noticed that I had left out the sparkle in some areas of the dog's eyes. To fix this problem, I used a tiny scrubbing brush, a number 2 Fritch Scrubber, to gently lift out a very tiny sparkle in the corner of the eyes. If you find that you need to lift an area in the dog's eye's, use great care to lift only a very tiny spot. I wet the scrubber, tap it once on my paper towel so that it does not drip onto the painting, and work a very tiny, gentle motion where I want to lift. Then, I quickly touch the area with a paper towel to lift off the loosened pigment. It's nearly impossible to lift the pigment back to absolute white, but it isn't necessary. 

This technique creates a little light area in the eye which is reflecting the light source. Be sure to lift in the relative same area of the eye that the light spot is located in the other eye. What I mean is that if the light spot on one eye is on the upper left (reflecting the light source) be sure to lift the other spot from the upper left in the other eye.

This glimmer of light will enhance the wet-look of the eye and will accentuate the fact that the eye is a round, moist object.

Scooter and Riley Lesson 18

Small, wet strokes of color create the illusion of fur. Use a light touch. Use primarily the same color over all the areas at this stage of painting Riley's body. This uniform color will give unity to his body.  Again, the close up view doesn't look that great, but when you pull back, look at in a mirror, or from across the room, it is amazing how the eye pulls it all together. When you allow the viewer's eye to do some of the work, the piece will have the impression of more life to it than if you paint in every hair and leave nothing for the viewer to enjoy or ponder.

I teach classes in the Melbourne, Florida area. If you are interested in drawing or watercolor classes you can learn more by visiting my website - click here.

Scooter and Riley Lesson 17

Continued from the previous post...

Here you can see how I have applied some of the brushwork for the fur on Scooter's face. Allow the blues to show, and use thoughtful applications of brushwork to develop the fur. Close up it doesn’t look that great, but when you step back a few feet, the eye pulls it together.

Caution! Don't overwork the piece!!!

Scooter and Riley Lesson 16

Using Quinicridone Gold and Burnt Sienna, both separately and together, work around the light areas of the dogs and develop patches of light and dark where appropriate.

Use other variations of the colors we used in the previous washes to develop deeper values, small brush strokes for fur where appropriate, and to be sure that areas make sense to the viewer.

Be sure to step back often at this stage to view the painting as a whole.

Scooter and Riley Lesson 15

This is an on-going lesson in watercolor. See the previous posts for more.

Set the piece against a wall and walk a distance from it. Look at the values. Do you see a wide variety of darks and lights? Are they in the appropriate places? Hold the painting up to a mirror to see it with fresh eyes. What areas do you need to correct at this stage? Have you worked around the entire painting or have you worked only in some areas, leaving others lagging behind?

Note the areas that you need to work in to catch everything up to the same stage and go back to develop those areas. Be careful not to overwork any area of the painting. This will give it a fussy look, instead of a crisp, completed look.

Scooter and Riley Lesson 14

At this stage of my painting I introduced Sepia to the palette of colors to develop the shadow areas. Sepia is a cool, brown, which creates a nice contrast when using delicate strokes around areas that have been primarily painted in warm browns like Burnt Sienna and VanDyke Brown.

I also used a mixture of Sepia and Perylene Maroon, mixed with a little water for a rich application of deep, transparent color to the areas of black around the face.

If you remember that earlier, we painted these areas with an underpainting of Prussian Blue. To make them appear very dark, almost black, I apply a dark, warm mixture of color. The glazes of cool and warm colors create a beautiful black that does not look dull, but alive.

When painting around the eyes, don't completely cover the Prussian Blue area. Only cover the small areas of deep, intense shadow around the outside edges of the eyes, outer area of the nose, the nostrils, and the deepest shadows around the mouth and corners of the eyes. This will add depth and volume. You'll be surprised at how much detail this creates, just by leaving some of the previous glaze showing!

Scooter and Riley Lesson 13

This is the next stage of an on-going watercolor lesson.

At this stage I am going back to check the entire painting for value ranges. I want the strongest values changes, the most color, and the most detail around the dogs faces, which is my focal area.

I used VanDyke Brown to develop the darker shadows around the ears, mouth and eyes. I also used Burnt Sienna to develop the mid range values around the face and in the shadow areas of the legs and tails.

Scooter and Riley Lesson 12

Using the previous color variations (see previous post), I spent several hours working around the dog's bodies and faces to develop their shapes. I used the existing puddles on my palette, with lots of water added, and a number 10 round brush to begin to develop small, fine strokes here and there to represent hair.

Don't fall into the temptation to paint every hair!!! Only paint a few strokes here and there to indicate where some of the hair may show. Be sure when applying these brush strokes to turn your paper so that you can carefully control the direction and curve of the strokes. Especially on animals with long fur, the areas of hair may curve and twirl. You may want to practice these loose, light brush strokes on a scrap paper to get the feel before trying this on your important painting.

Scooter and Riley Lesson 10

This is the continuation on an on-going blog lesson. You can see the previous lessons by visiting my most recent posts.

Now it is time to work around the dog's bodies and develop the over-all color and values. This is done very wet-in-wet. I applied water, then dripped pigment into the relative areas where the lights and shadows were represented in the reference photos and my drawing. I want these edges to be very soft. I will work in details later, but these foundational glazes are very important to the over-all impression of shapes in the painting.

I applied a very wet mixture of New Gamboge, Quin. Gold and Burnt Sienna to Riley's body, leaving a few areas of white paper where the values were the lightest.

Scooter and Riley Lesson 9

Riley needs a collar.

I used Sap Green and applied a fairly wet wash of strong pigment to the collar. Then, I dripped in some Perylene Green into the shadowed ends of the collar to create the illusion of the collar going around Riley's neck. Again, don't over blend. Just allow the wet colors to soften by themselves.


If you would like to paint along with my blog lessons, you can get the photo references and drawings sent to you by visiting my etsy shop, clicking on the Online Lesson icon, and pay a small fee of $5.00. I will then email all the references to you.

Scooter and Riley Lesson 8

Using Prussian Blue, and a number 10 round brush with a good point, I painted in the darkest values of Scooter and Riley's faces.

Be careful to only apply this pigment to areas that you want to appear very black. Either paint around the white sparkles or first use masking to save those areas.

If you use masking, be sure to allow it to thoroughly air dry before applying any paint. These little white areas are very important to make the dark eyes sparkle and look as though they are moist and life-like.

I also used some VanDyke Brown and Burnt Sienna to begin to develop a few more areas of shadow shapes around the dogs faces and bodies.

Scooter and Riley Lesson 7

At this stage of the painting, I used a very wet wash of Prussian Blue in the back-middle area.

I applied the blue, and as it was drying I applied wet drops of VanDyke Brown to the wash. This created a really nice, dark value that had some depth to it.

Do not over-blend or over-brush! Allow the pigments to run and blend together as they will, but don't force them to blend completely. Too much blending is what makes watercolor "mud".

Scooter and Riley Lesson 6

This is a continuation of our on-going lesson.

Be sure the previous washes are thoroughly dry before applying this wash. I have physically mixed Burnt Sienna, VanDyke Brown and Permanent Alizarin Crimson in a very wet wash to lay in the brown color of the base. This can be worked in very wet, again using a one-inch flat brush. To get into the nooks, crannies and odd shapes, I hold the brush straight up and down, or tip it to use just the corner of the brush. This makes the application much more efficient than switching to several different brushes during the wash.

Allow to thoroughly dry before moving on to the next stage.

Scooter and Riley Lesson 5

Using Antwerp Blue and French Ultramarine Blue I laid in some color for the pillows.

The light source is coming from above, so I used the darker pigments closer to the bottom of the pillows, and used the lighter, more wet pigments near the top. I'll add texture and details to the pillows at a later stage of the painting. Right now, I just want to develop relative values throughout the composition.

I used the same colors to create the collar for Scooter, on the right.

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