Thank you for your report!
We have received your report and it is currently under investigation by a forum moderator.
Here we go again...
Welcome to the forum.
Here you can discuss all things art with like-minded artists, join regular painting challenges, ask questions, buy and sell art materials and much more.
Make sure you sign in or register to join the discussions.
Hang on Studio Wall
This is a Studio member-only feature!
Join our Studio membership and save your favourite Painters Online content, from gallery artwork to step-by-step guides, to your own online mood boards. Create your go-to place for inspiration and learning. Plus, members can also enjoy a range of exciting features including monthly art videos and a digital magazine library.
If you are already a Studio member, simply login to your account.
Not a Studio member? Why not try our free 30-day trial - no commitment, no credit card required
Message
Posted
I showed the portrait of the dog to the ladies daughter and instead of whatever comments I thought I might get, what I actually got was "oh, she'd rather have a picture of the other dogs"
Charmless and ungrateful in one sentence...not bad. However, I enjoyed it and I learnt a lot so....
Here we go again.
I trace the basic outline to transfer it onto my paper then spend time getting the drawing and Good as I can. Each time it gets a little better. 
Edited
by DavidG4YVM
Posted
Well, two wrongs and all that...
Im not sure about love but I am not being reimbursed for paint. having said that the woman concerned has furnished us with much home-made marmalade over the years so I really don't mind. I also thoroughly enjoy the work and it has been a huge learning experience. one of the things I have learnt is quite how people expect me to turn their rubbish photograph, blurry and with not even all the dog in the frame, into something like a picture! Still, it's a super way of learning about angles and dimensions etc etc. Knowing that the finished work is going to someone else rather than just into my folder is a great driver for perfection (whatever that means).
Ive just spent a few hours transferring the image to my paper and then redrawing it (what I do is trace the key elements, eyes, nose, nostrils, outline etc, together with angle lines and proportions (thanks Sylvia) onto the actual paper, then redraw the image obeying those key points.). This is done so now I shall let it sit for an hour or two and as I walk past it during the morning errors and oddities will work their way into my consciousness and then I can fix them.
Im not at all clear yet how to paint the whiteness of these pooches...the more I look though the more I see how LITTLE white there really is - the majority is grey shadow, howsoever pale. I might have to invest in different pencils, maybe some Albrecht greys or graphitints. My current greys are feeling rather limited - the last picture pushed them, and me, to the limit and this might be too far!! I think someone on this forum tried graphitints.
I bought an amber intense pencil this week and that might serve for some of the coats - a super colour when wetted.
D
Posted
Take it you're using coloured pencils or watercolour pencils on this one - I very rarely use them, so don't know if it's possible to get an opaque white with them? If it is, then a process I've found useful in opaque media, on the admittedly few occasions I've painted white or any fur, is to apply a dark first of all - not necessarily a very intense one - and work the white over that. You still have to take shading into account, but this method helps you achieve greater depth with the white fur/hair than you'd be likely to achieve otherwise.
Won't work with watercolour though, unless you overlay an opaque white like Titanium, or white goache (or even acrylic - if you WERE going to use that, Chroma White [from Chromacolour] is very useful). What matters in my view is always the result, not the purity of the methods employed. Even so, I sense the pure watercolourists curling their lip, and uttering little moues of disgust....
Posted
Robert, yes watercolour pencils. I do have gouache so that might help as you say, I shall have to simply try things and see what works. I will often try things out in sketch books first, to achieve the technique I want. makes me sound very grand and proper, which I aint, but you knows what I means Mr 'Higgins. As for her marmalade, it is extremely good marmalade and these pictures are in fact small change in response.
Linda, pastel is a good call. No probs on the same either! Will watercolour pencil go on over pastel I wonder?
First colour...
