Thursday Feb 1st – 1pm-3pm EST
Dog week! The previous two weeks we worked at opposite ends of the value scale. The cat was up in the light values and the street scene was down in the darker values. This reference has everything in it. Some light white fur, some dark fur, and mid values for the browns. There’s some subtle shading within each of those 3 areas that we have to capture without losing the overall value balance. Will be fun!
Please do the drawing ahead of time as usual. Note: this is a square reference and I’ll be using 10″x10″.
(All session materials are linked off the main page)
Materials:
- Student paper for mixing color swatches
- 100% cotton paper for the full painting (I’ll be using 10″x10″)
- Value scale (See the Useful Tools page)
- Pencil/Paint/Palette/Water/Paper towels/masking tape
- Brushes: A larger brush for the washes. A slightly smaller (10 or 12) for the face and later details.
- Colors: Cobalt blue, Ultramarine, Burnt sienna, Vermillion/napthol/cad red (orangey red), Cad lemon/hansa yellow (greenish yellow), yellow ochre, black.
Reference Photo (click to enlarge and right click to download)
Reference Photo with grid
My Version:
Drawing Video:
Class Video:
I lost it under the head and my paws are a mess – but despite his many, many foibles – I really like him!! He does look like he has steam coming out of his ears though!! Maybe he’s not as impressed with my rendition him as I am
Yes he looks great. And I quite like the steam effect.
Thanks for leading us through this Michele! I see now the big contrasts in value range. I needed to darken the brown fur shadows to have a similar value as the black fur. This got tricky to not lift off previous layers of paint. I rewet the black fur to try and lighten it and the black is sort of hazy now. best to leave it alone I guess. Not sure if you can see this in the photo. I like one of the paws! I’m debating a name for him.
And another lovely one. I think the browns look fine to me.
I did a lot of fix’en after class and this morning. I think the right eye is too high, even though the left ear is lower than the right, it appears too high. what is your evaluation Machele.
I don;t mind the eyes being a little lopsided. Adds a bit of character. I would maybe put some darker values around the snout. That nose is looking a little stark and he/she does have some darker values around there.
And the paws look great!
Thank you!
Very nice Liz. You’ve done my usual trick of making the head a bit too big. Although maybe we could pass this off as a puppy?
I think the eyes are too big and too close. But again, very instructive to paint a subject I might not otherwise have chosen!
What a wonderful expression you’ve given him/her!! Again I don’t mind the eyes being a little skew whiff but maybe the pink bits underneath could come down in value a bit. And glad you liked painting this. I always find it instructive to paint things I wouldn’t usually do too.
Enjoyed painting the basset hound. As usual it was fun and challenging! Did a bit too much fiddling at the end. Need to learn to stop that!
And another fabulous one! That fur really shines. Wondeful job.