Dogs and frame

Useful tips for pet portrait painting

Painting with light

Although hampered by drying time, glazes are a very sophisticated form of applying paint and as close to painting with light as the artist using paints can get. The transparent nature of the glazes, combined with the careful and gradual build-up of layers can produce startling results where highlights 'glow' and shadows have depth you could enter.

Millais was a great exponent of this. In his painting "Isabella" (1849) he took glazing to it's height where, for the central figure of Isabella, he used only glazes painted onto a white ground to create an intensely bright figure that acts as the focal point for the painting. This type of painting requires careful preparation with a detailed under-drawing, as it is more or less impossible to make changes once the painting process is underway.