I often visit southern Africa in the dry season and over the last few years I have seen zebra herds in mopane scrub, but never managed to sketch them. Mopane can be beautiful trees, but in many areas, due to the large numbers of elephants, they are stunted and twisted, pruned to a convenient 6 or 7 foot height by the pachyderms! In the dry season, a few vibrant green leaves appear but they sit amidst the browns, oranges and reds of the old leaves. It is a beautiful combination, especially when a herd of boldly striped zebra wander through. Finally, this year, I managed to get the sketch down on paper and it may very well become a studio painting too!
All my field sketches, are created in Africa directly from life, or sketched back at camp purely from my memory of sightings. They are completely finished in Africa and I use no photos or video reference at any time in their creation. It is always tempting to add finishing touches back in the studio, but I avoid this to ensure that my field sketches really are field sketches.
This Original Field Sketch is watercolor and pencil on watercolor paper, 11×14″, and priced at US$300. Limited Edition Giclées are also available, priced at US$120 each. Only 10 copies are available, printed using archival inks on watercolor paper, 11×14″, all signed and numbered by me.
A donation will be made to African conservation from every sale.
Until Nov 22, I will be sharing 1 of my new African field sketches every day. The new sketches are shown to my newsletter readers a full day before they are shown here. Click here to Join my Mailing List and see the sketches as soon as they are released, or see them here 1 day later.
Wherever and whenever you see them, I hope you enjoy them as much as I enjoyed creating them.
Tomorrow’s sketch is of sleeping painted dogs!
Until then…
Alison
www.ArtInspiredbyAfrica.com