How to Draw a Long Hair Dog in Pastel

Stroke in some dark blue in the background and blend thoroughly with the fingers making sure you go over the outline slightly. We don’t want a halo to form.

Mark the eyes and fill in with a dark brown and blend with a paper stump. Add the pupils. Lighten the lower half of the iris with a white pencil.

With a dark brown pencil, outline the ears, nose and mouth. Paint in the dark shadows of the ears with black and fill the ears with light brown and blend with the fingers. This is only the underpainting. The hair details will be added later.

Fill the nose with a light brown and with a much darker brown paint the shadows below the eyes and some guidelines for the hair. Blend the ears with a light pink and deepen the hollow color.

With a light grey pencil show the left eye up a bit more. Draw in some Burnt Sienna lines, following the hair direction and blend slightly with a stump. Be careful not to encroach into the highlight areas. I will be jumping around a bit as I try to balance out the different tonal areas. Define the mouth line and darken up the corners of the mouth. Very lightly blend some of the colour over the whole face with the finger and not with the stump.

We can now begin to draw in all the hairs in the ears. Notice that I’m pulling the hairs from the base to the tip. This ensures the thinning of the hairs towards their tips. There are also a few darker hairs as well. Rough in the hairs above the eye and the side of the face. Some of the lighter hairs will hang over the dark area below the eye. Add the highlight in the eye.

Draw in all the light hairs to the ear on the right and alternating with the brown pencil. Some of the hairs are not straight and go in different directions.

Begin to plot in the facial hairs around the whole area.

Some hairs overlap into the eye area, so we have to complete the eye showing the sky reflection and the highlight.

While I have the black pencil in the hand, I’ve gone to the nose and painted in the markings and the nostrils. Smooth out the nose with the pink pencil and some white for the highlights and the hairs under the nose.

Stroke in some soft black into the neck area and blend smoothly with the fingers into the background color. Add the dark brown of the body color, leaving the metal tag open.

With a light Burnt Sienna pencil and a dark brown pencil begin to paint in all the hair clumps, add the white, lightly smoothing with the finger. At times we can blend the darker areas with the paper stump. The area below the mouth needs to be darkened up.

Take the sharpened white pencil and start stroking in all the white hairs around the face. Some are nice and long.

Block in the tag with orange, show the hole and lighten up the edge.

The dog is in a flower bed so stroke in some bright green and light green and softly blend. Dab in some violet flowers and some smaller yellow ones.

Use a soft white pastel stick to paint in all the very light hairs in the face.