Who doesn't love dogs?!

I start by painting the background, especially for furry pups. The last thing you want to do after you have finished your pet masterpiece is to have to paint carefully around the fur to add the back ground details.

I use carbon paper! If you are transferring to a cradled canvas, find a couple magazines or a book to put underneath while you transfer the image, so the canvas does not sag.

One of the biggest mistakes I see people make is they think their dog's nose should be painted black in the painting. If you paint it all black, then you can't see the nostrils! I usually paint the nose grey, brown, pink or some other color depending on the color pallet, and I paint the nostrils black.

After all, it's paint! Acrylics dry really fast, and then you can paint over any thing you don't like. The best effects come from layering the paint from the background coming forward, and out of the picture. Just start getting larger areas of paint onto the canvas and adding finer details as you work up.

If you don't thin your paint, you will quickly lose sight of your transferred picture or drawing. Start with thinned out paint and slowly build up layers and soon the painting will appear and you won't need the drawing underneath.

In my experience, as long as you nail the face, the rest can be pretty rough and the painting will still look great. Don't forget the white dots in the eye for the reflection. Those make the eyes come alive!