# Painting a white dog?



## TerryCurley (Jan 4, 2015)

I've tried a couple of times to paint a white dog and never got it right yet. What are the secrets to doing that? How do you get them to show up better. I've tried adding a touch of blue to the white paint and I've tried adding a little brown and neither look really good. This is the art project I worked on today.


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## chanda95 (Apr 6, 2011)

If I painted I could help you! I wish I could. I am completely inept at painting sadly. I do love your little pup you just painted though. Looks like it's about to let out a tiny little puppy howl. Absolutely adorable. 

The only thing I could suggest for the next one is adding a bit more depth. The area on the right between his little leg and his belly could use a bit more darkening to differentiate the two. Maybe darken the underside of the belly a bit because as he is lying down it will be darker along the bottom. I really don't know if I am making any sense at all..I hope you don't mind but I am attaching a picture with arrows of areas that could see a little bit more value changing..Not a tremendous amount mind you, just a little bit to indicate shadows and add depth.

It is difficult to tell where the light is coming from with this painting. I see a little darkening under the left side of the face but then it all goes back into the same coloration. Any painting or drawing will need an identifiable light source and your shading should reflect that if your ultimate goal is to make things look a little more realistic.

I still love this though. It is sooo whimsical and cute. You really have captured pure puppy sweetness.


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## TerryCurley (Jan 4, 2015)

All good points. You make yourself very clear. Putting arrows on the picture helps. The picture is still wet so I can make those little adjustments right now.


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## TerryCurley (Jan 4, 2015)

The light source I envision coming from overhead ever so slightly to the left. These are the corrections I just made.


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## Liz (Jan 10, 2015)

I have trouble painting white dogs too, so you're not alone Terry. I would deepen the shadows in your puppy to give the cutie more depth.


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## TerryCurley (Jan 4, 2015)

I'm thinking that the next white animal or white anything I try, I'm going to see about underpainting it first and then putting the white on top. 

I did put in more shadows for depth on this cutie. Part of my problem is taking the photo of the picture to post. Often the flash distorts the contrast in the picture, and no flash gets blurry. Oil has a shinny surface that reflects the light so taking pictures of oil paintings has it own set of problems.


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