Leisure Painter — June 2017

Polar Bear Montage, watercolour on

Saunders Waterford 300lb Hot-pressed

paper, 8x16in. (20.5x40.5cm). This

montage shows a narrative, a sequence

of actions by the bear in which she takes

a swim, comes ashore then goes through

the motions of drying herself before

settling down for a snooze in the snow.

I worked from sketches and photographs

done on location in Spitzbergen, starting

with a rough design layout to work out

how it would all fit in. Actually, I had

many more actions available, but felt

that the composition might be too

crowded if I included more.

t

W

ildlife has always fascinated me

and from my early painting days

I have enjoyed sketching the

animals and birds that crossed my path.

I began by including them as features or

a centre of interest within a landscape

composition. Sometimes, however, after

watching and sketching for a while,

I would realise that a story was unfolding

in front of me and that the collection of

rough sketches – some of them quite

appalling – related a tale about the

particular animal or bird. This came to a

head on my visits to the Arctic and when

I began working on my book on the

Arctic (see next month’s Leisure Painter

for details), I realised that it would need

a number of paintings to show the many

fascinating aspects in the life of a polar

bear or walrus and, unless they were

displayed together, the effect would be

lost. The answer was to create a montage

of the various activities these creatures

were performing.

For those who wish to paint wildlife,

Watercolour

making detailed studies of the creatures

in a zoo or safari park is an excellent

idea, but to understand what makes

these beasts tick you need to see them

in their natural, wild habitats. One of

the polar bears I watched and sketched

for hours – and found her actions both

riveting and entertaining – gave me

enough material for several montages.

As the bear moved around, the

backgrounds were pretty spectacular

and needed a lot of space so those

were left for the main paintings and

I simply focused on the animals and

their activities for the montages. At times

the bear moved incredibly fast as she

chased gulls and I was hard pressed to

record everything in sketch form. At

quieter moments I managed small

watercolour vignettes.

Where to start

You don’t need to go far and wide to

create animal or bird montages, and they

don’t necessarily have to be strictly

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

Here’s how to draw and paint montages of your favourite animals in their

natural habitats. David Bellamyoffers practical advice from where to look

for inspiration, materials and techniques to exercises you can try at home

Wildlife montage

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

nObserve animals and birds in

their natural habitats

nBuild up sequences of events

for a montage

nPractise watercolour techniques

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