I have done the watercolour swatch for Roman Szmal in my last video. Let’s try painting a dog this week using this set to see how the colours react. I find this photo of French Bulldog on pinterest. There are tons of dog photos on pinterest.Ok, if you are a beginner , when you are searching for an easy photo reference. Try to look for dog reference with short hair species. This one is an good example.Reason being, for short hair dog, you will have a better control on creating fur texture since it is quite insignificant if people notice about how you create the fur. For this exercise, I have using very short stroke to create minimal fur hair.It is not that essential if you do not know how. You will see how I paint as I explained further later. As usual, I always drafted the drawing before my painting.
I am using wet on wet technique on the facial area of the bulldog. At the same time , I have applied a thin layer of Caput Mortuum ( Roman Szmal ) as base colour. And I will slowly build up layer with darker tone. For this exercise, I am using Caput Mortuum on the dog’s face throughout this exercise.
I am using the liner watercolour brush to create very short fur around the facial. If you are not confident, you can just do without the stroke of fur. Slowly build up layer and folds on its face since bulldog significant features are folds and it’s droopy mouth. I am trying to create a balance between realism and also to incorporate my thoughts onto my arts. I feel the eye’s expression on any animals are really important as well. During the exercise, I am also trying to train my eyes to look for details like reflection.
The fun and more relaxed part is just painting the grass. I have mixed lemon yellow and ultramarine light to create a light green as base colour. And I slowly build up the layer by using a more muted green which is the aquarius green in this watercolour set. I have also noticed the french bull dog’s body has some minimal of pinkish skin tone at the chest area. I have use a very minimal of aquarius red and diluted with water to create a light pink . You also need to consider about light source and to create some shadows around its body. I feel it is really important as it will enhanced the depthness of your subject.
At last, this is the final piece and I simply love the colours . I have created this on youtube and you can watch my whole process. This video has minimal time lapse so that you can see it much clearer. I hope you enjoy this art as much as I love making it.
