Draw and Paint your Pet. Susie Wynne

see. This will increase your skills and confidence.

WATERCOLOUR TECHNIQUES

      Painting a picture for the first time can be overwhelming for a beginner, but if you know how to use your materials the process becomes much simpler. I use two kinds of media – watercolour paints and watercolour pencils. In this chapter I shall introduce the basic techniques for using these. It is vital that you become familiar with these techniques so that you can achieve the results you are striving for when drawing and painting pets.

      The main point I want to stress is that you must expect to put in a great deal of practice. If you are willing to dedicate part of your day to drawing and painting then you are bound to improve.

       USING WATERCOLOUR

      Work always with clean jars of water at the ready and wash your brushes regularly after use. Always use small amounts of colour, well diluted, and when applying it onto paper use your brush to brush the water and pigment until there is no excess left on the surface. If you apply too much a little pool will develop, leaving an unsightly hard edge when dry. One way to avoid a hard edge if this does happen is to use a sponge or tissue to soak up the colour.

      The two main techniques in watercolour are wet-on-wet and wet-on-dry. Wet-on-wet means applying colour on an already wet surface and wet-on-dry means, of course, painting on a dry surface. If you are completely new to this medium then I would suggest that you start by familiarizing yourself in painting wet-on-dry pictures.

       Wet-on-dry

      This method involves building up layers of colour with a slightly stronger pigment, or sometimes the same mix that was laid down before, allowing each layer to dry completely.

WET-ON-DRY This technique is an effective way of building up tone. It is used here to create the form of a cat’s ear. A first wash is applied over the whole ear area, then left to dry. With a second layer some shape is created. When this is dry a darker layer is added to complete the effect.

      When starting a painting wet-on-dry I deal with the tones first of all. Take a look at your subject and notice where the shadows are. You can create these beautiful effects with watercolour with just a little diluted pigment. Paint your first layer carefully, then allow this to dry completely. Then wash out your brush, put clean water in your jar and apply the next layer of colour, keeping it watery, though with slightly more pigment. Continue in this way, adding wet layers on dry ones, until you have reached the tone you require.