Lesson:   Painting Fur

It looks hard! But it really isn't. You can be a bit nervous and it even helps! Let's talk about a short haired animal -- that means you have to use short strokes, short touches.

And you know what? We have to think layers and layers just like the hair on top of our heads. The easiest way to illustrate that is to say it's not like a doll which has a hole on the top of his/her head and the hair falls out from there.

Here is one layer on the top of the head. You can make a single stroke/touch or loosely let your brush even zigzag at times. Oh, yes, and I use the edge and corner of the brush.

We also need to consider that there is more than one value in the hair to give dimension. So, in each layer we need to add more than one value.

Stroke in the first value as shown. Then touching in the same way as shown, haphazardly stroke/touch in the second value within the first value.

Now, the last thing to do is comb gently to blend. Do this with a brush called the rake (but only once or the values will mush together). If you do not have a rake, you can lightly touch up and down between the layers with a flat brush.

Once you feel relaxed with painting/stroking/zigzagging the fur in one layer, you need to know that you do not have to paint the whole area/animal one layer at a time. It would take a long time.

You can cover a large area, about 1/2 inch at a time by stroking in the first value, then the second value. But you need to stroke in three to four layers in that space.

It will take a little practice just as it took a little practice to write -- so hang in there!