Australian Shepherd Mini Painting

Acrylics will always be my go to medium. Fast drying, easy to use. This is Aussie Risa on Canson Watercolor paper 140 lb paper, 5"x7".

Walmart had the best price by at least 4.00 from other stores. Of course, with a 40% off 1 item online coupon, Michaels would also be a good deal.

The Strathmore site is also pretty fun and informative. Their Strathmore 400 Mix Media paper is
great paper for a lot of media, it holds up well with good weight and paper tooth. They have a new one that is an even heavier paper. (340 lb)

For just casual sketching I have used the Canson Mix Media 9"x12" for years. And guess what?  Again, Walmart sells it in my town. It's super reasonably priced and the 98 lb paper is heavy enough to take most media without much buckling.

The brushes are the synthetic Simply Simon from Michaels. Their cheapest since I go through them often.
You can also get it all at Michaels and Hobby Lobby for even less by using their online 40% off coupon for one item.

No matter what you decide to use, it's important to practice - a lot. Just start drawing, painting. Pick something that moves you and just Start :)

Colored Pencil Dog Portrait of Faeyre

This lovely girl was easy to be inspired by. Her soft steady gaze is part of her calm wise demeanor.
Faeyre is an Australian Shepherd.

Colored pencil is a slow medium. My shortcut for this is using odorless mineral spirits to quickly fill the paper with an underpainting for the pencil layers. I like Mona Lisa Odorless Mineral Spirits, but Gamsol works too.

Much of my work in all media involves an underpainting. Painting and drawing are foundations I always start with.
Colored pencils used: Prismacolor, Faber Castell, Koh-I-Noor. Each brand has a quality I like. This was mostly done in Prismacolor with their soft, buttery rich color letdown. The fine details were done with the harder leads of the Koh-I-Noor and FC.

Prismacolor pencils are wax based. Faber Castell and K.N are oil based. Both dissolve well and blend with each other when the mineral spirits are used. Paper used is Strathmore bristol vellum in a soft white. This colored pencil painting has 6 layers of pencil to achieve depth and richness of color.

I loved painting this lovely girl!










I always make a color swatch to sample the colors I think I might want to use.
The ones with the numbers are the colors I used for this portrait.

• PC = Prismacolor
• FB = Faber Castell
• KN = Koh-I-Noor