Apparently paint and pets do mix. The last time my BFF and I tried to mix them, things went a little awry. We did our best to turn her little fluffy pooch, Watson, into a panda with some black food dye. (Blame Kung-Fu Panda.)

Anyway, I saw this book on the Leisure Arts website a while back and put it on my wish list. Recently Leisure Arts offered any book they publish to their affiliates, if said affiliates would do a review. (They didn’t ask for a positive review, mind you. They asked for a review and I take that as “bad is just as good as good.”)

I asked them for Paint-A-Pet, a paint by numbers art book by Linda Gillum. The book arrived and I sat there looking at it and wondering what manner of evil made me pick that — I can’t paint. I’ve tried! And the numbers won’t help, because … well, just because I suck at painting.

Enter the aforementioned BFF, Iris. She’s practising her art, and perfecting various techniques. I already think she’s perfectly imperfect and if I could put up her artwork everywhere I go, I would be so happy. But she won’t let me.

Well, she thought this book was perfect for her to work on her animals in watercolour. And she agreed to review the book for me. Here she is, folks — Iris King!

Paint-A-Pet by Linda Gillum

Published by: Leisure Arts

The Paint-A-Pet book is a fun and very easy to use book of animal designs!
The formatting, from book cover, to table of contents to the individual page designs, are super clear and visually pleasing to the eye.
There is a great variety of animals and several levels of difficulty created from the number of colours that go into one design. This makes it so that a person of any artistic level can have fun with these designs!
The instructions on how to execute each design are super simple and easy to follow.

Tracing

I tried using a makeshift light table to trace the template on to water colour paper without having to use transfer paper, however the lines of the page behind made it a little hard to do. A work around could simply be photocopying it and then using the light table. In any case, I was still able to trace most of it and eyeball the rest.

All traced! I did it with a water-colour pencil so that it would just blend in with my water colours in the next step.

Painting

I then used watercolours and followed the “paint-by-numbers” guide, which was great! I had the freedom to use whatever colour I wanted but didn’t have to think about where they needed to go.

Then I finished it off with a black ink brush pen to create my own look.

Lastly, I was inspired by the book to create my own background so I added blue & purple watercolour splatters. and some brush lettering!

I really enjoyed using this book and can’t wait to get even more creative with my next piece! And I highly recommend it to all the pet-lover-artists out there!

Iris

Gifts and products for your home with original artwork by Iris can be found at https://society6.com/irisking.

The book, published by Leisure Arts, is here.

Guess who gets to keep that book and have fun with watercolours. Yeah, not me. And in case you were wondering what happened to Watson the Pink Panda Pooch, the little guy had to live like this for several weeks. Let’s just say it was all “interesting”.

Pink Panda. Don’t judge, man! He loved it.

Cheers!

PS. No animals were harmed or traumatized in the Pink Panda episode. He thought he was having a day at the spaw.

PPS. You can find more or Iris King’s art at Society 6

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Tags: animals, drawing, painting, Pink Panda