Drawing Ochre in a Black and White Dog

One of our members sent in this picture of her dog and asked for some advice regarding colours.

"Hi Colin and SteveI would like to do this picture of Ebony I am at a loss a what colours to use also would you just do the head and shoulders or the whole body.Would Colin ever consider ever doing a Sea Turtle.Christine"

The area I will focus on in this picture is the Ochres around the nose. We have many black and white projects on the site which are really good examples of how to achieve the black and white fur.As usual the colours I am recommending are just a basic set of colours which you could use for the general tone and using sand colour pastel paper. I always recommended to test out these colours on spare paper first to ensure you’re happy with how it looks. The colour numbers referenced are from the Faber-Castell Pitt Pastel Pencil range.In the ochre area the base colours would recommend trying are the white, ivory and cooler grays as there is a blue-y hue to the picture. These cooler grays in the Faber range are 230 and 233. That's a light and mid tone grey.Then you're looking at using the 187 which is a Burnt Ochre and 283 which is Burnt Siena.In the very dark fur you would also use 181 payne's grey and then add in 169 which is caput mortuum. Then you can put black on top of this and then even put a bit of 169 back on top of the black to help bring that out more.I would test combinations of these colours out on spare paper and check out the results before you start.Regarding the composition, I would do the head and shoulders. And regarding the Sea Turtle, well, we have some under sea creatures coming to members in the future so this subject is not beyond the realms of possibility. Perhaps one day!