Hi it’s Anna Mason and in this mini class I'm going to show you the process I went
through to paint this bright-eyed red squirrel, much larger than life
this bright-eyed red squirrel, much larger than life
I worked from a reference photo as I couldn't find a red
squirrel to sit still for long enough Let's take a look...
I began as always with a really detailed drawing. I kept my pencil light - especially when outlining
the edges - which I drew with a jaggedy rough line to show the furry texture there.
I began the painting working with pale, watery colours. Beginning with a small brush and a
muted pink colour for the toes nose and ear, I mapped out the different colour areas so I could
clearly see them and wouldn't accidently paint over them with a darker fur colour.
Next I began working on the fur by focusing on the lightest parts of the brown areas - which had a
yellow hue to them. I used a larger brush and even at this early stage, I applied the paint in lots
of short lines to reflect the furry visual texture. Next I painted the areas with more grey to them...
which included the shadow under the squirrel and some of the paler, long fur in the tail
where I held my brush at a higher angle to achieve long, fine lines.
I used a slightly more purple grey to outline the eye.
I then used a larger brush and a bright, but still quite pale orange -brown to work into all the main
areas of darker brown in the squirrel. I knew I'd be darkening up a lot on top, but I wanted this
bright orange brown to be able to sit as a layer underneath - and to pop through wherever I left
gaps in subsequent layers. As before, I worked in short little brush strokes - and I worked in
the direction I could see the fur was in - to help give the squirrel it's texture and form.
Next I used a pale and watery black-brown mix to place a light version of the very darkest
parts of the fur, again making short brushstrokes and paying attention to the direction of the fur.
With the main colour areas mapped out in their lightest versions,
I turned my attention to the darkest part of the painting - the eye -isolating the brightest
highlights by painting the next lightest areas first with a pale grey mix - using a tiny brush.
Next I focused on the very darkest areas - using a darker mix - but still a little
lighter than how dark I'd ultimately need it to be. The eye is so important to the
success of the whole painting, I wanted to darken it really carefully and gradually.
So next, making sure the layer underneath was dry, I darkened the midtone areas a touch
with another layer of the pale grey mix. Before darkening the dark areas some more.
Because we perceive tone as relative to the tones around it, gradually darkening like this gives us
the best chance of not taking any area too dark - which is important with watercolour when it can be
hard to lighten an area once you've painted it. I added a couple more layers of the paler mix
to the midtones of the eye - adding extra detail I could see
Stepping back to see the eye as a whole meant I could see I needed to darken it some more
before turning my attention to the darker areas of fur and adding another
layer of a thicker brown-black paint to those too - with a finer brush this time
to start capturing more of the fur effects I then made a more brown version and started
to apply this colour on top of the paler fur colour I'd applied before - wherever I
could see these darker colours- making sure to paint the lines in the direction of form
and watering down a touch where the darker fur seemed lighter than the mix I was using.
With those brushstrokes in place and dry, the contrast levels looked totally off and I could
now darken up the background colour and in so doing make the squirrel start to feel more solid.
I used the orange and yellow brown colours I'd used in the first layer,
but this time they were much thicker. I applied them gently as a glaze with a
larger brush over the top of the markings I'd just made - making sure not to lift them off.
At this stage I was into a balancing ack - darkening the background colour meant
I could see the darker areas in the squirrel could be darkened some more
then that in turn meant I needed to darken some of the midtone areas again
With the body darkened I darkened the head a little
And when dry I could go through the same process there of adding some furry detail
on top - this fur was shorter so my brushstrokes were shorter too. There
were A LOT of small lines needed here and it takes time to work in this detailed way.
I always really enjoy this stage of a painting though as you can really
get into flow state and get lost to the process in a relaxing and energising way.
Next I used the same process to darken and add detail to the feet...
Which allowed me to continue to darken the rest of the squirrel in the same way - adding darker
fury detail, then balancing it with pale layers of colour to darken the gaps between
fur. Keeping alternating focus between detail, then stepping back to look at the squirrel as a
whole and look for bigger areas that needed darkening to get the form looking right.
After about an hour and a half of this, I darkened up the very darkest areas again and then
carried on gradually darkening other areas via the same process for, oh another 40 mins or so.
This is sooo much fun, it's really worth taking your time over and relaxing into.
Only when I was satisfied that the fur seemed darken enough overall did I add in the dark
whiskers with an extra tiny brush - which really helped bring the furry fella to life.
I then added a few last details and, after taking about 6 hours to paint, the squirrel was finished
A full video class of this red squirrel is available now in my online School.
If you’ve enjoyed this mini class, please subscribe to my YouTube channel,
then scamper on over to AnnaMasonArt.com where you can
take full length video classes FOR FREE and find a whole heap of resources to help you pick up your
brush and paint the way you’ve always wanted to. Thanks so much for watching and I’ll see you soon
to help you capture the beauty of nature on your paper.