Painting your orangutan

Once your monkey is baked and cooled you are ready to paint it. When I first started out I used acrylics, then I moved on to artists oils. The main disadvantage of those mediums is that they take time to dry. These days I always use genesis heat set paints, although it took me while to get used to them I love them now. The beauty of genesis paints is that once you are happy with your finish you bake to set it, so there's no waiting around for it to dry. You can also layer paints to create different effects, I do this a lot with my babies, but not with monkeys.

First you should put a little thinner in your pallette, and add just a dab to your brush. Next, dip the tip of your brush into the red paint, you only need a tiny bit. Then dab around the muzzle, inside the mouth, around the eyes , the tip of the nose and on the ears. You are aiming for a subtle pinky glow, NOT a sunburned monkey! If you overdo it, load your brush with thinner and dilute the painted area, then dab off with a sponge and start again. You then need to colour the dark areas of the head, I use burnt umber for this. Dab a little thinner onto your brush again, not to much or your paint will be too watery. Then take a little burnt umber ( or whatever brown you've opted to use) onto your brush and paint the areas that you need to be dark. Next, using a sponge wedge (you can get these in Boots or in the make up department of most chemists) dab all over the dark painted area. This will give the paint texture and give the illusion of poreous skin. To accent the pink areas take a dry brush and lightly brush your brown paint pot, you just want to catch a touch of colour. Skim the ears, highlighting the raised areas. You may want to do this on the wrinkles around the eyes too.
As this little one has teeth I have painted those white with a tiny dab of white paint on a very small brush, again be careful not to dilute too much or your colours will run. When you are happy with it pop it back on the wadded tray into a pre-heated oven for approx 7 mins.

Next: Adding hair to your monkey