Great! I love painting animals and don’t have a problem with pastel pencils, but I struggle with watercolour, especially backgrounds. So I loved seeing how easily you put in that background and explained how to “attach” the animal to the background. I will be watching a lot more of your videos. Thank you. I’m even more impressed that as a young mother, you can put in the time for us. I’m retired and still have difficulty finding time to paint!
At this very moment I'm editing a new video while my husband baths the 3 yo. I just fit it in wherever I can! I'm so glad to hear you'll be watching more videos!
Thank you Rachel! I have a black cat commission and have never painted a black one before. Listening to your tips and watching your demo has me off and running (painting :) ). Great job!
Hey Rachel, love your paintings, videos and all the tips. I must have watched every one of your videos at least twice. I have Border Collies so tips for painting black are great, thanks 😃
@@rachelparkervarner I joined All Animals Watercolor and saw that amazing bird you did and started following your channel. :) (or maybe it was one of your dogs/cats)
Good advice on painting black animals. I would love to see you paint a black sheep. Also, one constructive criticism I can share is not to have the music play until you finish talking.
We has a mostly black sheep (the Jacob breed) when I was growing up, the sun put some gorgeous rust colored highlights in his fleece, his name was Shadow and he was a beauty. I’d love to paint him from a picture I have. 🐑
rachelsstudiodotcom I’m just breaking out my paints and brushes after many years of collecting dust. I have a black cat I want to paint and that’s how I found you!
@@sseabee6877 I don't have any super beginner videos - but there are a lot on RU-vid! I can say that when I started, I didn't really start simply though. I just started painting what I wanted to and continued to improve my skills by reading books and practicing. Also, my paintings improved drastically when I started using good paint and paper. And start with a good reference photo. That's half the battle! (And don't feel bad about tracing. Painting and drawing are two different skills)
Do you have the ability to do a tracing? I think if you paid closer attention to the hairs around the eyes, and getting the shapes right around the eyes, that would help a lot.
@@karendunn5624 When I use a light board, I print out the picture, put it on the lightboard, put the watercolor paper over the picture, and trace directly onto the watercolor paper. Now I trace in Photoshop, but you may not have that capability.
I'm so glad I found your videos. I do animal portraits in pyrography (wood burning) and use prismacolor pencils for a little bit of color but I'm very very new to watercolor. What was the white you were painting details with at the end of the video? Ink, watercolor or acrylic?
I'm so glad my videos are helpful! I use a product that is discontinued - graphic white. But white gouache is just as good. I also like white gel pens.
I’m painting a dog but only starting to paint after years of drawing...Two things, first, i notice people mixing different colours to create black, why not just use the black?, and second, I didn’t take a picture but printed off some of them and when i paint the fur it looks flat, and its so dark that I actually can’t make out how the fur actually looks.
Hello Darby - if you paint large areas with just flat black, it can look really flat. If you look at the fur of a black animal in good light, it will have high and low lights with colors in them. That being said, I have painted my black cat Sadie many times with just black and maybe a little blue here and there. It just depends on the look I'm going for. In the watercolor word, also there are purists who want it to look like sparkly transparent watercolor, and thick chalky black paint in large areas is the opposite of that. So it's part of the watercolor culture to avoid a chalky look with watercolor, and most black paint is chalky. A classic 'watercolor purist' mix for a dark but transparent non chalky black would include a phthalo blue, but I don't like how staining it is. A beautiful black can be had by mixing Winsor Violet, Holbein Aureolin, and Ultramarine Blue. When printing out pictures of a black animal, I actually recently did this trick for my students on Patreon. I lighted a picture in photoshop then printed it out so I could see the cat's contours.
Beautiful painting and great concept for the video with the 3 panes! I like how you control your edges and put variety into colors and values. You can check out my art/music works in progress at my RU-vid channel, The Painterly Flutist.
Thanks for the great tutorial Rachel. I haven’t ventured much into animals yet but I sure enjoyed this. Just beautiful . I don’t know how to link anything in the comments but I am @letteringirl on Instagram.
Thank you for visiting! I'll look you up on Instagram. I do wish people could upload pictures to the comments on RU-vid like on FB but I guess RU-vid is afraid it'll get too spammy.
