Mixed Media Fun: Drawing Bagel Dogs to Test Your Materials
And test your color palettes at the same time!
Important announcement! Just a reminder that we have our Doggust Drawing session coming up next Monday, August 18th at 1pm EDT! It’s free for everyone to join live and paid subscribers will get access to the replay. If you’d like to sign up (you need to sign up to the luma event to get the meeting link to join live!) you can find all the info in this post from last week:
And here is the direct link to sign up for the session for easier access :)
Alright, with that announcement out of the way, let’s dive into today’s tutorial…
What’s a Bagel Dog?
Bagel dogs are firstly, one of my favorite ways to draw a dog. It’s so simple and easy and you can still customize your dog endlessly. Secondly, they are an excellent way to test your colors and materials to see what looks good together!
But before we get too far, what do I even mean by a Bagel Dog?
It’s a dog curled up in a little ball, usually sleeping, that ends up looking a bit like a bagel! Here’s an example from the workshop I taught at Summer Creative Retreat this year:
I call them bagel dogs not only because of their shape but also in honor of my friend
’s sweet dog, Sesame (aka Sesame Bagel) who looks extra like a bagel when she lays like this because of her beautiful sesame seed like markings!Because Bagel Dogs are so easy to draw, I also like to use them as a fun warm up or material/color testing exercise like I mentioned above.
I initially came up with the exercise for my first Skillshare class, Sketchbook Snack: Drawing Goofy Dogs. In the end, it didn’t make the cut for class so I turned it into a blog post that I ended up never sharing for some reason? Which brings us to today, where I am finally sharing the *exclusive* first look at the handy-dandy Bagel Dogs exercise. Enjoy!
Mixed Media Fun: Drawing Bagel Dogs to Test Your Materials
You know what’s even more fun than swatching your materials? Swatching your materials while drawing dogs shaped like bagels, of course!
One of the easiest ways to elevate your sketchbook spreads is by picking a limited palette ahead of time. The trouble is that it’s easier said than done to pick the right colors and know what works well together.
This is typically the part where we would start swatching, filling up space in our sketchbook with little patches of color like this:
And while that is fun, today I want to introduce you to an alternate exercise. One in which you find your color palette, test your materials, and get to draw dogs!
Materials Needed:
Your sketchbook or some paper
Mixed media art supplies (i.e. markers, color pencils, crayons)
Step 1: Form a Circle of Negative Space
Using your base layer material draw or paint a circle of negative space on your page. I typically use marker or paint for this step but you can use whichever material you are wanting to test. Keep in mind this is our base layer, so you should use a material that can be layered on top of.
Step 2: Add Linework to Create Your Bagel Dog
Using a material suitable for linework, let’s add the outline of our bagel dogs (aka a dog laying curled into a little ball). First we’ll draw the outline of the dog with a loose circle, using our negative space as a guide. Then we’ll add the lines for the head and the back leg. Lastly, we’ll add the face details and a tail.
Step 3: Add Details and Flourishes with Remaining Materials
Now that we have a basic bagel dog, it’s time to add some flavor! Using additional materials and colors let’s start adding in some details. Get creative here and try as many combinations as you like. Layer materials, mix and match colors. You can add the basic details like a collar, spots, fur texture. Or maybe you want to add some more fantastical elements like dragon scales, dino spikes, or even a mermaid tail!
Step 4: Repeat as Needed
Repeat with as many bagel dogs as you like until you find the combination you want to use for your project!
That’s all there is to it! I find that drawing bagel dogs instead of just plain swatching gives me a better idea of how colors and materials will actually look when applied to a project.
Remember that these bagel dogs are all about experimentation and aren’t finished pieces of their own (although you certainly could do that!) so have fun, relax into the exercise, and play around with your materials. You might be surprised by some new combinations!
What do you think? Will you give Bagel Dogs a try? Do you have another doodle you prefer to use when testing your materials? Let us know in the comments, I’d love to try some new exercises!
Fun!!!