“Chewey”

“Chewey”

Chewey obviously has a looooot of curls, which can take a looooong time to draw. If Chewey was mine, I’d probably rather call him Curly:-)

It’s easy to feel overwhelmed when faced with all those curls, especially when you’re the type of person who enjoys realism and detail. In the steps below, I’ll show you how I approach this type of fur, and why I do it that way. (Hint: it keeps the overwhelm at bay:-) )

I painted Chewey on Buttercup Pastelmat, A3, using a wide variety of mostly Carbothello pencils, and some Faber Castells. In the end, I used the soft pastel sticks by Rembrandt for the details. The pencils for the dog were mostly cream, white, a wide variety of greys, from light to dark, brown, ochre and some burnt sienna and yellow. For the background I used Indigo, a combination of light blues and yellows to make the couch, as well as greys and white, some red and purple in the shadows and soft pastel dark grey and white for detailsin the end.

I started Cheweye’s drawing on a smaller grid than what I’d normally use because I knew I wanted to use the squares to help me with the curls.

I use a larger grid normally, sometimes only 6-8 squares is enough. And sometimes, I don’t use a grid at all - I just draw freehand, straight onto the Pastelmat, because I know I can adjust and move things around as I go. When I draw freehand, I don’t include all the details, just the main shape.

I started with the background, and painted it mostly to completion. Chewey has a lot of curls flicking out onto the background, so it makes sense to do the background first and have it almost done, rather than to try and work around those flicky out bits of curls afterwards.

Again, there’s no rule that says we have to paint the background first. You can start where ever you like, as long as it makes sense to you. Sometimes I paint the whole picture in one layer, then go back and do another layer over the entire picture and then again, and again, until it’s done.

Once I completed the background, I started with the eyes. Again, you don’t HAVE to start with the eyes, and I don’t always start there either.

What I was actually doing was following my oen process which I call “creeping up.” When I feel like a part of a painting might be stressful or challenging, I creep up on it, bit by bit, basically until it’s done.

I don’t do everything else except the hardest bit, then leave that for last. Rather, I do the bits as I come across them logically, but I do small bits at a time. That way, even the hardest bit is only a combination of small steps.

Once I completed the eyes, and could have just worked my way out from there, a bit at a time, but I chose to move over to the left ear and just start there.

To continue creeping up on these curls, I started with just the ear, which covered about 3 blocks I think. I used this first part to figure out which colours I would use, and how I would best go about getting the curls. I tried a few different ways, while working my way across the top of the head and other ear, down to the muzzle and nose.

As I moved my way down the body, working just a few blocks at a time (still creeping) I don’t neccessarily complete the previous areas. I only work on them until they’re mostly done, becauseI know I’ll go over everything again and again later on.

In this way I don’t try to get every square perfect before I move on. I would go crazy like that:-) I just keep creeping up on the curls, a few blocks at a time, figuring them out as I go, and creating their form with lights and darks and something in beween.

As you can see, the beginning block in stages can be quite loose and rough. By the time I reached this last part of the body, which didn’t have anything breaking it up, I felt I could do it in one section.

I marked the darkest bits on the body,where the fur is greyish versus yellowish and where the curls might be. In between the main clumps of curls there are also other little finer hairs, which are also curly, so I just marked the main clumps with a cream colour. Because I was working on a Buttercup colour paper, the cream didn’t show up very much, but it was enough to see.

By this stage, the curls are nearly done, but they still need some depth. So after all that creeping, I don’t feel like I “painted a curly haired dog”. I feel more like I worked in small manageable sections, figuring stuff out as I go, until I end up with a completed dog on the page:-)

It’s much less stressful that way. You can “creep up” on any complicated subject. There’s no need to always paint in one strict style. Go about it in whatever way gets the job done as beautifully as you can.

I spent a bit of time going over the whole painting, adding more fluffyness to the fur, using a soft ppastel stick in white and cream and beige colours. I added darks where it was needed and lights where I felt it wasn’t light enough. I emphasised the left side and the front of the picture for the lights, and the right for the darks.

By this last stage, I usually look for darks and lights. Getting the darks dark enough and the lights bright enough can really uplift your whole painting. I also looked for these lights and darks in the backgroud, and adjusted those aswell. I go around the eyes, the pupils, the nose, the teeth, the shiny tags/collars…. any of those tiny details make a big difference.

I hopethis creeping up way of working helps you when you’re faced with a complicated subject. I use it for human portraits sometimes as well, especially for clothing and fabric that have a lot of patterns that I want to keep, or things like chairs or blankets etc. Anywhere I find a lot of detail that might be overwhelming but I don’t want to simplify.