How to Draw a Yorkie

How do you draw a Yorkie? I wouldn't know how to answer that question but strangely it seems to be the no.1 reason people find this blog! It was also why I thought it might be a good idea to re-do an old graphite drawing in colour but I lost interest after a while and put it away. I was rather shocked to see how long that was- the WIP was posted in May last year! Time to finish or bin it!

It looks like it's been done on the same paper as my last few drawings but this one was draw on a larger brown sketchbook made by 'Seawhite of Brighton' and bought in Green & Stone, London. There is quite a difference too - this one is made for drawing on (although it's a bit smooth for my taste) and bits don't flake off the way they do with the paper from Paperchase. (That isn't a criticism since it's intended to be a scrapbook not a sketchbook.)

As for the colours, I'm afraid I threw so many colours at this I can't remember them all. It was looking very dull and I just put colour on with a bit of abandon. I used Lyra Rembrandts and added quite a lot of Grey Green and Brown and Yellow Ochre in the fur on his body. The very lightest highlights are, again, White (Luminance) and after Alex suggested it looked too light I put some yellow over it (he was right!). I have a few new Luminance colours and Raw Ochre went over the white to tone it down a little. (Other brands I have don't mix with the waxier Luminance pencils so I normally put those on last.) I saw a lot of green in his fur so I put that and some blue in too, especially on the darker fur on his back. The background has spots of Lyra - Cobolt Blue, Light Blue, Paris blue, True Green and Sap Green.