Leisure Painter — June 2017

14 JUNE 2017 http://www.painters-online.co.uk

Watercolour

Step 2

1 I continued with the detail on the left-hand portrait then worked

on the right-hand bird of the pair. Here I aimed at making this bird

stand out more so, again, I used quinacridone red on the head then

a strong mix of French ultramarine and warm sepia for the body.

2 I used the same colours for the vulture taking off, painted the

acacia tree with viridian and touches of ultramarine and warm

sepia then placed the vulture on top.

t

DemonstrationNubian vultures

Youwillneed

nSurface

lWaterford 200lb

Hot-pressed

paper,

9 x12in.

(23x30.5cm)

nColours

lIndigo

lBurnt umber

lLight grey

lQuinacridone

red

lCobalt blue

lNaples yellow

lTransparent

yellow oxide

or yellow ochre

2 I then drew the series of postures, laying

on quinacridone red and cobalt blue over

the head and neck of the left-hand portrait,

followed by light grey shadows.

3 For the pair chatting together I rendered

the left-hand bird in light grey, dropping in

a little quinacridone red onto the head while

this was still wet. I gave the vulture that’s

taking off the same treatment as the portrait.

4 Finally I painted the background to the

tree on the right using Naples yellow and

transparent yellow oxide, which is quite

close to yellow ochre.

lFrench

ultramarine

lWarm sepia

lViridian

Step 1

The poor old vulture suffers from a rather

bad press, yet it cleans up after messy

beasts like lions and cheetahs, and

provides excellent subject material for the

artist. I came across a gaggle of a dozen or

t

so Nubian vultures

near Ngorongoro

Crater and was absolutely fascinated by their

antics, especially when landing or taking off.

1 In this first stage I began with the vulture

landing, dropping

in a mixture of

indigo and burnt

umber without any

preliminary

drawing then

spattering around

it. The surrounding

paper was masked

off beforehand.

Pencil sketch of an elephant.

Although I sometimes use

watercolour to sketch wildlife,

my primary medium is the pencil,

which is an excellent tool for

capturing gestures and movement,

whether for a montage or a normal

painting. I watched this tusker for

some time as she stood chewing;

she appeared quite unconcerned

by my presence so I was able to

achieve several pencil drawings.

For some reason she held her right

front leg up off the ground for

long periods so it might have been

troubling her. Elephants are fairly

easy to sketch. I began with an

outline, trying to capture all the

various features and getting them

into proportion then moved on to

the more critical points, such as

where the tusks met the head and

trunk, and the eyes. I noted down

her interesting characteristics, such

as chips out of the edge of the ears

and major creases then ended up

rendering the textures of the

trunk, legs and main body.

t

LP06 12-16 Bellamy_Layout 1 05/04/2017 12:23 Page 14