Today Liz was painting a puppy, mainly black and white with a little orangey tan. She had started the painting on Bockingford hot-pressed. A paper without too much texture. It would be hard to get the detail onto textured paper. Instead of black, Liz uses ultramarine and vandyke brown. Burnt sienna and alizarin crimson are also used for shadows. She recommends an under-layer of a pale blue when painting black as this can shine through for the highlights on black fur. Cobalt blue is used for the underpainting and ultramarine for the shadows. For the shadows on the white, Liz used a mix of alizarin crimson and ultramarine.

When painting an animal Liz starts by tracing the eyes and nose to ensure they are in the right position, as it is not possible to alter them later when using watercolour. Liz works wet on dry, but mentioned an artist called Jane Davies who drops colour into wet and gets some lovely effects that way. Liz will layer up her watercolour as it dries lighter, whereas acrylic will dry darker. She pulls her brush out to separate the bristles, which creates a fine fur effect. When using a fan brush or similar, Liz advises using something like a sable, as the artificial ones tend to be too regular and create a combed effect. Always try to paint in the direction of the hair growth and it will help get the contours right. Like painting a branch, go from thick to thin, so with hair from root to tip.

Talking about colour mixing, Liz explained how she will look at a different shade of red and decide how orange or blue they are, for example Cadmium Red is quite orange whereas alizarin crimson is to the blue end of the scale. Payne’s grey, a favourite of Liz’s, is a mixture that includes black, ultramarine and crimson. Liz said she learned a lot about mixing in a previous job where she had to draw individual strands of tartan!

Moving to the eye, Liz used the burnt sienna to paint the colour that she could see. Warning us to remember to leave the white for the highlight, she told us to think of an animal’s eye like a jelly dome. The light hits the outside but also goes through the other side.

Putting on and lifting out: Liz explained how you can paint the colour on and then using a clean brush dipped in a little water you can lift the colour off to leave highlights. Hint: for dabbing away, avoid kitchen roll - the best thing is loo roll without any texture.

Liz uses a white gouache to add the little hairs. (White watercolour is good for blending but not highlights.) The gouache needs to be a creamy consistency, using clean water and a small brush. The black underneath remains undisturbed if it already dry and you only go onto it once. To do whiskers, Liz moves the artwork to the right angle and was using a ‘tiny detail 00’ brush.

When painting a white animal, it is often what is around it that gives it the shape, for example shadows under the white paws. Liz had emphasised the background on the white side of the dog to make it stand out more.

 We spoke a little about origins of colours and how some have become rarer due to ingredients used or poisonous elements. You can learn more about these on the Jackson’s Art website.