Labrador Puppy With Detailed Fur Texture Playing Coloring Page

This is a portrait rather than an action scene. A labrador puppy fills the frame from the shoulders up, head slightly tilted, muzzle loose and wrinkled, both ears folded down against the sides of its head. The fur is built from thousands of short hatched strokes that follow the direction the coat grows. Behind it, large daisy like blooms and curling stems cover the background edge to edge.

The face alone will take a while. Work it with sharpened pencils and build the tone in layers, since a single heavy pass will fill the hatching and flatten the muzzle.

One approach that helps: keep the background flowers in one restrained family, muted blues or soft greens, and put all the warmth into the animal. The portrait then lifts off the page instead of competing with the pattern behind it.

Those loose folds around a labrador's mouth are functional. The breed was bred to carry birds without damaging them, and a soft mouth of this kind was one of the traits Newfoundland fishermen selected for.