How to Paint a Dog

Never painted a dog before?

Find out how I’m tackling this challenging commission having never painted a dog before!

So, I’m always up for challenge but I may have seriously bitten off far more than I can chew with my latest commission. I’ve been asked to paint a portrait of a Bernese Mountain dog. How hard can that be?

Thinking how to start

I decided that the best way to approach this commission was to study as many animal paintings as I could so I took to Pinterest to find lots of images.  In these I was looking specifically for the detailing - how the brush strokes were applied to get certain effects such as the feathering of fur or layering of similar colours.  Pinterest certainly delivered and I found a huge resource of images to refer to.  Next was to see how accomplished artists, particularly those that specialise in animals, actually paint.  Luckily, there are a few people who have posted videos, albeit time-lapse, of their approach.  These were highly instructional and showed me the various different ways to tackle the job.  One thing was clear though - everyone seems to approach their projects in a different way.  Clearly there are no rules!  Having gathered as much information as I could it was time to consider how I was going to approach the task.  So, how challenging is this going to be?  Well, here’s the handsome boy that needs to be immortalised in acrylic.

The Bernese Mountain Dog to be immortalised in acrylic.

Preparing a prototype

Of all of the larger paintings I’ve worked on I have been consistent in developing a draft painting before applying any paint to the canvas for the main piece.  These prototypes, as I call them, allow me to experiment with different approaches, elements textures and so on.  Sometimes the things that appear in the prototype end up in the final work but oftentimes they don’t.  Ultimately though, I usually end up with two paintings that look similar in some respects but look distinctly different. I decided that, because the dog was going to be quite a challenge, I would also approach the task with a prototype. So, I started off with an old canvas that I coated in Gesso primer and once this was dry I began to sketch out the major details and outline of the dog. Now, I don’t usually paint directly from photographs and probably won’t for the final commission. However, because this is going to be a challenge I decided to start by practicing by working directly from a photo so that I had something to measure my progress and ability.

Outline sketch for the prototype dog portrait

Brushing up on technique

Outline sketch of the dog completed it was now time to move to developing the brush strokes I’d need to get this painting started. Now, before anyone tells me that the image below is not quite right in terms of size and form or indeed colour I need to point out that it’s now meant to . The whole purpose of this effort was simply to allow me to develop my brush stroke techniques and to determine which of my many brushes would be the right ones for the job. If you look closely you’ll be able to see where some brush strokes (like the right side of the image) are too rough and broad, whereas towards the head the strokes are much finer and more suitable for painting hair and fur. Gentle layering around the face was also practiced on this piece. Also, I only used black and white paint for this because I wasn’t interested in working up the colours just yet. The colours can wait until later. Overall, I was quite pleased with how this went and I now have a clear plan for preparing the base layers and building up to the finer details.

So that’s it so far. The next steps will be when I start working on the main canvas.

Prototype painting of Bernese Mountain dog - getting the brush strokes right