I started off with a piece of board which I coated with a coat of gesso. I wouldn’t normally use gesso for acrylic paint but the board was dirty so I thought it’d be good to put a base coat down so I could clearly see my linework when it was down. Had to wait for it to dry as I was out of the house – no heat gun or hairdryer!
Once it was dry I sketched my design on. I didn’t realise the gesso would be such a smudgy surface for the pencil to draw on. I really want to invest in one of those non smudge pencils I’ve heard about! Some people use coloured pencil for their line work but they’re really tricky to rub out and I do a lot of rubbing out when sketching! At first it wasn’t going too well and I was a bit frustrated but it started to take shape.
I used several reference photos and in a lot of them a sitting frenchie was about two heads tall (with extra for legs and ears) so I used that as my starting point. Once I had the line work down I thought I’d start with the ears. I used a baby pink for the base and then mixed in a touch of purple to get the shadows.
Next I moved onto the background. After a bit of thinking I decided to go for a bright blue. I’m planning to do a white doggo so I want him to stand out against the background. I used big painterly strokes as I wanted the texture to be visible.
I struggled with the grass. Maybe because I was tired I’m not sure. But I was trying to mix different colours and I was never getting quite the right amount so I was getting frustrated. And I got my hands messy which is something I don’t like about acrylic paint. I used the smallest brush I had to create texture and detail. I tried a fan brush which was cool but I wasn’t really sure how to use it to its best effect.
This time I had a lot more luck. I painted the eyes, jowls and nose and added his pink tongues. I added shading to the lumpy area on his chin. I added shadows and started to paint the fur white. I could have left him white but having the texture of the paint is always more fun.
I added shadowing to the ears and texture to the fur. At first the grey on the fur way too pronounced but covering it with a layer of white paint helped to tone it down and blend it in. I added a white highlight for the tongue and put in the base colours for the crocus. I added a base colour to the buckle and deepened the shadowing on the belly.
I felt like the detail was too much so I added another layer of white on top. I was brave and used a thicker brush, it’s harder to control but does give a nice texture to the dogs body. Sometimes covering up a mistake turns into an advantage!
Next I fixed any grey I accidentally painted over. There was a bit of white from the face that overlapped onto the sky so I fixed that. Then I moved onto the crocus. I wanted to make the stem more vibrant so it really stands out so I added highlights and shadows. Then I did the same with the flower using a watered down white. I felt brave so I decided to have another go at the grass, mixing white with the green to create a lighter colour for contrast. To finish I put his whiskers on with chalk pencil.