This class is dedicated to making lively, expressive, personality-filled portraits of animals, whether it’s your own pets, that goat you met at the county fair, or your favorite wild animal.

Here’s what you’ll learn in this course:

• How to use either watercolor or gouache, along with mixed-media supplies like colored pencil and markers, to create portraits in your own style.

• How to use measurements, grids, and negative space to get the drawing right.

• How to make a “color map” with colored pencil to establish a base layer of color and value—and to get over the fear of the blank page!

• Different approaches to starting a portrait, by either building up dark tones first or beginning with light washes.

• Options for using pen and ink in your animal portraits

• Finishing touches and texture with our mixed media supplies.

We're going to be painting dogs, cats, and...chickens! There's also a quick time-lapse demo of a giraffe portrait. I’ll provide photos for you to work from, but I also encourage you to round up your own pictures of your pets or your favorite animals.

This is a really fun, whimsical approach to making a portrait in your own style. Once you see the technique, you’ll be able to paint all your favorite animals, and make portraits to hang on the wall or give as gifts. This class is perfect for beginning and intermediate artists, but will also offer some fresh ideas to more advanced artists.