How To Paint A Fox In Watercolor With 3 Colors

I found the above reference photo on Pinterest, credits to the unknown original photographer. I liked the three quarter profile and the watchful facial expression. The tips of the ears are cropped out of the photo but it wasn’t too difficult to fill in the blanks.

As you can see my initial drawing was quite detailed. When I am painting a realistic subject like this, very small drawing errors can really throw everything off, so it’s important to understand the three dimensional form of the fox’s face, so I included a few more details than were strictly necessary in order to make sure that I put the shadows in the right places.

The thing about artistic rules is knowing when you should break them. I’m going to break the rules with this painting by starting with the darkest parts first, in this case, the eyes.

The eyes bring a subject to life, they are the most crucial and also the trickiest part of the painting to get right. If I’d done this the “Proper” way and painted light to dark I wouldn’t know if the painting had been successful until the very last brush strokes and that’s a lot of psychological pressure to put on yourself. Start with the lightest parts of the eyes using a small round brush with a thin wash of Burnt Sienna.

Dry the eys thoroughly. I’ve used a hair dryer for convenience but if you allow colors to dry naturally, they will often remain more vibrant.

Using a small round brush with a mix of Paynes Grey and Ultramarine, I slowly and carefully added the fox’s dark eye markings and pupils. Remember to leave a small highlight in teach eye as this will really bring the eyes to life. The highlight is usually seen reflected in the pupil in the top half of the of the eye. I’ve also lifted out some paint from the lower half of the eye as this is illuminated by internal reflection.

The darkest fur is around the eyes. Paint those shapes in early and allow them to dry. Because of the transparent nature of watercolor they will continue show through the glazes I’m going to be adding. I could just as easily have added them at a later stage.

With a strong mixture of Paynes Grey and Ultramarine, I painted in the shape of the nose. I lifted out the highlight on the nose with my brush, wiping off the excess paint on a tissue. I used a much weaker mixture of Paynes Grey and Ultramarine for the grey shadows under the mouth and around and under the muzzle.

When the eyes and nose are finalized make sure that everything is completely dry. Use a hairdryer if necessary. If the paint hasn’t completely dried it will bleed and run into the washes that we are going to paint next and the crisp hard edged shapes that we painted so carefully will become a runny, blurry mess.

I’ve switched to a mop brush for the fur. The mop brush can hold a large amount of paint while maintaining a sharp point. I’ve applied a thin wash of Burnt Sienna in a series of flicks and strokes to give the impression of patches of fox fur.

While the initial wash was still wet I dropped in a stronger mix of Burnt Sienna in the area between the eyes where the fur is a bit darker.

Allow the wash to dry before glazing over the top with more strokes of Burnt Sienna building up layers of darker fur along the muzzle, around the eyes and on the side of the head.

I mixed some Ultramarine and Paynes Grey with Burnt Sienna to create a dark neutral Grey for the dark fur on the ears.

A rigger works well for flicking in the long thin whiskers on the fox’s muzzle.

Adding some final touches to the eyes, If necessary. I felt that maybe the eyes looked a little bit too human and not quite foxy enough! So I switched back to my small round detail brush to extend the pupils down slightly