As with all my paintings, the first stage is to draw the subjects without any fine detail. Then, I add a fine acrylic wash. The next stage involves deciding on the background: should it be simple and blurred, or detailed? Choosing the Right Background For stage three, I opted for a savannah-type landscape. I focused on the detailed wrinkles of the elephant’s skin. The final stage was to complete the details in the background and lighten the sky. African Elephant and Calf Fact

Gorillas are our closest living relatives after chimpanzees. The Mountain Gorilla is a subspecies of the eastern gorilla. It has longer hair, jaws and teeth, but slightly shorter arms, than the other subspecies of the Eastern Lowland Gorilla. Adult males grow a patch of silver hair on their back and hips, giving them the name 'silverback'. They can also develop a dark ginger crop on their forehead. There are approximately only 1004 Mountain Gorillas left in the wild On averag

Pumas are secretive cats that inhabit the mountains from South America to Canada. They are the fourth largest cat in the world, after the lion, tiger and jaguar. Male pumas can weigh anywhere from 68 up to 100 kilos. They are often solitary animals and males prefer to go their own way after breeding. They do not roar like other felines, such as the lion or the tiger, but purrs like a domestic cat. Their lifespan is only ten years. Puma Fact: These big cats have large paws and

The Clouded Leopard is an elusive and mysterious species of wild cat; they are rarely seen in the wild and not very much is known about...

Due to the fine detail and individual scales on the two Rhino’s this painting took around 4 months to complete. Stage one differs from the other paintings because the drawing was more detailed, each scale was painted in black so as not to loose their formation over the skin. The next stage was to block in using watered-down acrylic colour to maintain the skin detail. The first time-consuming part of this painting was to detail each scale. The final process was to produce a sa

This painting has been a technical challenge and the most detailed painting to date. Using the same technique of a pencil drawing and starting to work out the background. As you can see through the stages I have been changing my mind with the rock formation. The longest process had been to create a frosty snow-covered landscape and to achieve this I had to apply thousands upon thousands of white dots on the pale blue snow. To achieve the wet-looking fur, I used a small rigger

This painting has been created with a natural rainforest background. After the initial sketch I Started by painting the jaguars spots and then gave a simple colour wash to cover the white canvas. The next stage was to plan the background  adding trees and bushes. The final stage was to complete  the detail into the forest and the fur on the Jaguar and cubs. Jaguar Facts: Jaguars typically have two cubs at one time. The cubs are born completely helpless and blind. They remain

A basic sketch again and blocking in the majority of the Leopard spots. Using an airbrush and a varied size circular stencil, I created the background with colours that harmonise with the fur colour of the Leopards. Next, it was filled in with a simple base colour to cover the blank canvas. Now I start work on the fur and eye detail. More fine detail was added using 0, 00 and 000 size paint brushes, and the last part of this painting was to paint the whiskers. I use a rigger

This was one of my most time-consuming paintings because of the amount of fur and mane detail required. Like all of my paintings, they start with just the basic drawing, no detail is needed in the first stage because that comes when overlaying the fur on the block in colour. The blurry background was created by the use of my airbrush and diluted shades of green with a touch of orange mixed in. After the basic colour blocking I started work on the fine hair of the Lion's body

I wanted to paint a detailed portrait of an old male African Lion showing the scars from a life of remaining the head of the pride. The first stage after the usual basic sketch was to fill the canvas adding a rough background. For the second coat on the background, I mixed the colours using an Acrylic slow drying medium which would give me enough time to blur the background colours before the paint dried. To achieve the blur, I used a 1” Acrylic paintbrush. The next stage was

I wanted to create an early light atmosphere for this painting to bring out the colors of the Lynx. Starting with a brief drawing and then blending the background. The next stage was to block in color with warmer hues on the cat's left-hand side of its face to show a direction of light. Now the longest time taken was to paint the fur on the body using a 000 paintbrush. The final stages were to complete the fur detail on the head and bring the eyes alive and then add the fur t

One of my favourite paintings started with a basic drawing and blacking in the main stripes. The single colour of pale olive green for the background was chosen to complement the pale orange of the tiger’s fur. The next stage was to block in a wash. The following stage was working on the detail around the nose area using a 000 paintbrush. The tiger's thick coat to give a realistic look was achieved using a fine rigger brush. The final stage was to complete the fine fur around

After a simple outline drawing, I used my airbrush and a varied size circular stencil to create this blurred background. This time the shades were a mixture of light and dark green to make the Cheetah stand out. Next came the same technique of simply blocking in color to fill the cat. Following that I worked on the eyes and gradually started finely filling in the fur. The last stage on all of my cat paintings is to add the whiskers. Cheetah Facts: The wild Cheetah population

Using the basic same technique, a simple correct anatomy feature sketch is made from a reference photograph, in this painting I photographed a Lioness residing at Longleat Safari Park. The background started with a simple greenwash, but as more and more detail was added to the Lioness the painting seemed a bit bland. This female was staring and looking for her mate, so I decided to increase the intensity of the background to show a more focused feeling. African Lioness Facts

The first painting in my collection of endangered cats is a handsome male Amur Tiger, I started with a simple pencil line drawing not adding any specific detail, just highlighting where the features should appear for example his eyes and nose and stripes. In the next stage, I created a very dreamy, blurred background, the reason behind this was because when I studied this tiger he seemed to be sadly concentrating on something. The next stage was to simply block in color on th