Dawg - the features

Once the background is painted, I like to paint the features of the dog.
That is, the eyes, the nose and mouth.

Once these are done , I know whether or not I will be happy with the painting.
There's usually a moment somewhere when painting these that I catch my breath as I feel the dog come alive.. and then I know the painting will be fine .

That happened with Dawg.. and his features

The colours I use are all non-staining colours - which means that if I decide that some of the darks are too dark, I can lift them out. But I firstly paint them in strong so I get the feel of the piece. Any adjustments can be made when the coat colour of the dog goes in .

The nose of this dog was actually chocolate brown with light brown patches - but I painted him dark brown to begin with, just to make him more solid on the page.
You'll see exactly what I mean on Friday, when you get to see the finished painting .