Here is CASPER! .. my little assistant ... my girlfriend knitted him a tam especially for this series - thank you Shirley - and I tucked a paint brush under his collar .. What a face! .. he is such a serious artist and maybe he didn't want to be identified - just wanted to remain anonymous -  ha ha

He is the light of my life - 

Now I don't do this technique with other dogs - however I have done 3 others for very personal friends of mine - their dogs were small and easy to handle - large dogs would not be a consideration

I might also add that when I first engaged Casper's time to help me - he was quite fidgety and frightened .. so I wouldn't want to put another dog thru this - back breaking for me to handle the dog while I'm dipping paws in the paint - but the distraction of the treats calm down the dog - until I pick them up and start dipping again - they wiggle and try to get away  - so as I said - I really don't do commissioned paintings for this technique - sorry

I actually did it ONLY for myself .. hope you enjoy the work that I have done

Paper Prep is a very important step in this process of making paw prints .. 

I first secured my paper with tape onto my floor in a confined space .. I used 16 x 20 Arches Watercolor paper - making sure it was big enough for my dog to walk around ...

I then placed 'treats' around the paper and made sure I had additional treats for the 2nd and maybe the 3rd pass .. 

I also made sure that the barricade was low enough for me to place my dog into the confined space

Here is Casper (my dog) walking around the paper .. The first left hand side is his first pass - I then picked him up and re-dipped his paws in more paint and placed more treats around the paper - you might be able to see the odd treat in the middle - the third pass he was now getting a wee bit annoyed and wanting more treats .. his job has been done!
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​Welcome Back - short but sweet - about my watercolor color palette that I only use for dogs 

I haven't a clue what each color is because I have had this for a very long time - I did have the sides of my palette marked with a 'sharpie' indicating the paint color but after time the names wore off - so it is a guessing game - however - I have the most important colors - Blue, Red and Yellow which are the primary colors

Other colors are purples, corals, oranges, bright blues, greens and earth colors.  I don't use earth colors as I want the paw prints to be colorful,  I can add earth tones after I have established my composition when the paw prints dry on the paper. 

So then I mix colors as vibrant as I can with as much water as I can to maintain the color - they look awesome now but believe me when I'm finished with dipping the paws into these colors it becomes a mash-up of colors .. 
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Check out my next Blog to see what I do with the paper