Emily-Rose Alcock Art

What brands do you associate with?

Whenever I begin a pet portrait, I start with an inky, illustrative line drawing. Sometimes it’s super loose, and other times it needs more precision.

Bronte the French Bulldog needed more precision, with so many tiny fine details needing attention.

The challenge I came up against with this portrait was that in every photo her coat looked a different colour. Sometimes more brown and in others more black. And this has everything to do with the colours running throughout her coat.

Black is never just black. So, it takes wash upon wash of translucent pigment to reach the desired outcome.

One of my favourite brands of watercolour paints for this is the Kuretake Gansai Tambi Japanese watercolours.

The colours are rich and more opaque than other watercolour brands, they glide on and deposit colour with a simple, gentle tap of my brush.

The rich intense colours come from the water-based pigments, which are more opaque than other watercolour brands. They are highly blendable with a creamy smooth consistency.

E R Braithwaite