Skill level: Intermediate

You will need

• Watercolour paints in the following colours:
  Lamp Black, Sepia Brown, Burnt Umber, Cadmium Red, Olive Green, Ultramarine Blue,
  Alizarin Crimson
• A light grey water-soluble pencil
• Small round watercolour brush
• Watercolour paper
• Water pot with clean water
• Tissue paper for cleaning your brush

To paint

Start by very lightly sketching the dog and the bucket using this sketch as a reference. You want to sketch as lightly as possible as watercolours are transparent, so pencil lines will show through. If you use a grey water-soluble pencil, the lines will be more subtle and blend into the watercolour wash.

Create a very watery mix of sepia brown and paint shadows above and below the dog’s nose, under the scarf, across the chest and behind the hind leg. Dark areas recede visually, so painting the shadows in this way gives a sense of depth. Carefully use this paint mix to outline the dog and paint small dashes to create fur texture.

Add slightly more sepia brown to the mixture and paint the bucket behind the dog. Add lots of the paint mixture to the paper so it pools in certain areas.

When the outside of the bucket is completely dry paint the inside using a slightly darker mixture of sepia brown. If your set doesn’t have sepia brown, mix a little bit of lamp black with burnt umber.

Wait until the first layer is completely dry, if any patches of paint still catch the light then they are still wet.

Paint brown patches on the dog’s back, tail, front leg and ears using burnt umber.

Carefully paint the stems and leaves of the flowers using dark green. This project has used olive green, but you can use whatever dark green your set of paints comes with. Paint these delicate stems slowly using your smallest brush. You can dab your brush with a piece of tissue before painting the stems to take off any excess paint and to help you get a neat line.

Paint the dog’s scarf using cadmium red. Start by painting using a light mixture of cadmium red and water, and then add more pigment to the knot of the scarf and the right-hand side of the scarf.

Paint purple anemones using a mixture of alizarin crimson and ultramarine blue. If your set contains a ready mixed purple you can use this. Vary the intensity of the paint by adding more pigment to it to create flowers of differing shades. Whilst the flowers are still wet you can add a drop of darker paint and it will blend in, creating a pretty effect.

When everything is completely dry carefully paint the dog’s eyes, nose and mouth using lamp black.

Paint the centres of the anemones using lamp black.

Using a watery mixture of sepia brown paint two horizontal lines on the bucket.

When that’s completely dry paint the handle of the bucket with a dark of mix of sepia brown.

Using your light grey pencil draw little dashes on the dog’s body to indicate fur.

Using a very watery mixture of sepia brown loosely paint a shadow under the bucket and the dog.

When the flowers are completely dry paint the dog’s lead-in.

Why not experiment by painting different versions of this piece? You could paint the dog black or brown, or change the colour of the variety of the flowers.

Credit: Emma Block, Emma Block Illustration www.emmablock.co.uk