My Tips for Painting Animal Fur: Monkey Video Demo

monkey in the middle oil painting — Monkey in the Middle ©2010 LMcNee

Believe it or not, I started my professional art career as a wildlife artist!

…and I learned from the best. Robert Bateman, John Seerey-Lester, Guy Coheleach, Alan Hunt and Carl Brenders taught me how to paint eyes, feathers and animal fur really well, while the late Vivi Crandall shared her amazing brushwork and color theory secrets with me.

In the speed video below, I demonstrate how to paint a realistic monkey. Painting animal fur is easy once you learn these simple techniques which can be applied toward any animal.
Here are a few extra tips to help you paint animal fur:

I prefer to paint the animal over the existing background color. This helps to make the animal part of its environment.
Outline the animal shape.
First, I like to paint the eye…for me, when the eye looks correct, the animal starts to come alive!
Next I do a thin wash of darker undertones over the body, allowing some of the background to come through.
Now it is time to begin ‘the fur’…remember this MOST Important Tip – painting fur is a lot like laying shingles or shakes on a roof – you start laying them from the bottom up! See how the bottom shakes are covered by the top and so on…this is the same way we place our paint-brush strokes to recreate fur on a monkey or any mammals, and even feathers on birds.

I started with the monkey tail and worked my way up the body.
It is important to understand the way hair, fur and feathers grow to believably paint them!
Then, start at the feet and work your way up the leg and around the hip and elbow.
For the face, start with the nose and the strokes radiate out from there.
It helps to splay the brush or use an old paint-brush to paint fur.
Remember to work from dark to light and thin to fat. The lightest color is last.