First a small disclaimer, I am not a professional artist or even proficient with watercolours , (this is my third watercolour painting), however I do have about 8 years’ experience in other media such as Oils, Pastels, Coloured Pencil, Pyrography and Airbrush.  As a result the methods and techniques I am using here will be based on my experience and not necessarily the ‘correct’ way to paint watercolour .
So far I have tried Cold press paper and hot press paper , this time I am trying Aquabord  which is basically a clay surface on a hard board backing amongst the listed properties are :
No warping or bending
Very easy to erase, scratch or lift off right back to the white surface.
No need for framing behind glass, just spray varnish for protection.
So I thought it was worth a try especially if you didn’t have to worry so much about preserving the whites.

 

Colours Used:

Bacground: Winsor Green, Perylene Green, Sap Green, Lemon Yellow.
Fur: Yellow Ochre, Burnt Umba, Cadmium Orange , Lemon Yellow
Dark Area’s : Paynes Grey, Burnt Umba
Eye: Yellow Ochre, Turquoise, Burnt Umba, Paynes Grey
Teeth: Yellow Ochre, Burnt Umba, Lemon Yellow.

Step 1


Here I have already put in the background after masking the transferred image with masking fluid. I had a few problems with the background as the paint doesn’t soak in and spread like on paper so I couldn’t get a smooth blend for a ‘blurry’ type background, so I just wiped  off the paint and took the approach of using a ‘stippling’ motion with a mop brush just like you would with stencilling , with an almost dry brush I was able to build up the layers for a reasonable result.

Step 2


Starting with the eye I using a thin layer of paynes grey for what would end up being the  dark areas , burnt umbra and turquoise for the iris. I used a 00 brush and a light dabbing motion with the tip of the brush for the textures in the iris.

Step 3


After several layers of colour I was able to build up the values in the eye and move on to the fur around the eye. I soon found out it is very easy to erase or scratch of the paint to achieve textures so after putting down the initial layers using very small brush strokes in the direction of the fur, I could then add highlights by lifting off or scratching the paint off very easily .

Step 4


Continued on with the fur , seems like I need at least 3 layers of fur to build up the depth , the first layer in yellow ochre, the another layer with a bit of burnt umbra added in and a third layer with a bit more burnt umbra and a little cadmium orange. Each time I try to paint the little fur strokes in-between the previous layer most of the time, as I don’t put an initial wash down some little specs of the original white of the board will also show through which helps  with highlights and the sense of depth.

Step 5


Bit more info on creating the fur, first I put down a layer of very fine brush strokes in the direction of the fur thickening the mixture and hence darkening the brush strokes where needed and also fill in the spots with paynes grey. 

Step 6


Next another layer of fine brush strokes but a little darker this time to start building up depth .

Step 7

Repeat for another layer

Step 8

Now I add in highlights using a hobby knife to scratch away the paint, another tool quite popular in the coloured pencil community is the ceramic blade type knife called the ‘Slice tool’ , of course you can use anything which will scratch the surface.

https://www.sliceproducts.com/en-gb

 

Step 9

Finally I go over the highlights with a light wash where required to ‘knock back’ the intensity of the highlight and blend into the surrounding areas. As I tend do build up my paintings in sections I will need to go over the whole painting at the end with glazing to bring everything together  and adjust colours and shadows.

Muzzle fur


The fur around the bridge of the nose an general muzzle area tends to be very short ‘tufts’ of fur to try and simulate this type of fur I start off with a light layer (yellow ochre), very small brush strokes which blend into small irregular tufts  by dabbing with the very tip of the brush.


Next I repeat with a little burnt umbra added increasing the concentration of ‘dabs’ in the shadow area’s.


Finally another layer but this time with a little cadmium orange added.

 
Nose


For the nose I started with a light layer of paynes grey , then built up the textures with a mix of burnt umba and a little paynes grey by again using a ‘dabbing’ motion with the very tip of my 00 brush.  When I was happy everything was dark enough (about 3 layers), I enhanced the textures by using the dabbing motion with plain water on the brush and lifting off.

Tongue


Looking at the reference I could see the overall texture of the tongue and decided the best way to try and reproduce this was to use a stippling motion with a small short brush,  after mixing up a mixture of cadmium red and violet I started..

It took several layers before I was happy gradually increasing the strength of the mixture for the darker area’s and a bit of yellow ochre helped with the blending from ark to light area’s.

Teeth


The teeth turned out to be quite difficult, to get the smooth blend I had to very quickly use a dry brush to blend straight after applying the paint before it had time to dry properly , colours used were yellow ochre, lemon yellow and burnt umba.

Final adjustments


The bottom area is slightly out of focus in the reference to try and get the same effect I went over the whole area with a light wash of Chinese white to smudge knock back the details to give a blurred look.  The whiskers I scratched out with the hobby knife and then went over the whole painting applying light washes where required to bring together the different area’s  and adjust shadows if required.

 

Conclusions:


I found the aquabord very difficult to work with to the extent I felt like I had lost some of the ‘freedom’ of watercolour painting mainly due to the surface not being very absorbent at all so blending and washes were very difficult indeed, even adding layers I needed to be careful not to lift the previous layer. I do like the vibrancy as the paint doesn’t fade when dry probably because the paint is just sitting on the surface and It  is also very easy to create highlights. I will now just spray with gloss varnish and frame, no need for glass.


This was an interesting test as part of my watercolour journey but for now I am going back to paper, of course this is just my experience based on very limited water colour knowledge I am sure the professional s out there can work a lot better with this type of surface, perhaps when I am more experienced I will try Aquabord again.