Tag Archives: cheetah sketch

Cheetah Dawn Field Sketch © Alison Nicholls 2015

African Wildlife Sketch #13 – Cheetah Dawn by Alison Nicholls

These are the same male cheetahs who featured in my sketch Creepers & Cheetahs earlier in this series. This sketch was created while I watched them scouring the bush for impala or other prey. They took their time and I was able to sketch both cheetahs as well as the tree and termite mound. I could have followed them all day, as not only were they very handsome boys, but they kept choosing the most scenic of locations, perfect for a field sketch artist!     

Cheetah Dawn Field Sketch © Alison Nicholls 2015

Cheetah Dawn Field Sketch © Alison Nicholls 2015

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. 

The Original Field Sketch is watercolor & pencil on watercolor paper, 11×14″, 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, 14×11″, 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 a buffalo herd.
Until then…
Alison
www.ArtInspiredbyAfrica.com

Cheetah Trio by Alison Nicholls

Art Challenge Day 3 – Field Sketching

Mabuasehube ANicholls

Mabuasehube, watercolor field sketch by Alison Nicholls

Gemsbok ANicholls

Gemsbok (oryx) watercolor field sketches by Alison Nicholls

Cheetah Trio Field Sketch © Alison Nicholls

Cheetah Trio Field Sketch, watercolor by Alison Nicholls

Once I started taking my watercolors out into the bush to sketch I reached a turning point. Gradually my sketches progressed from landscapes with tiny animals in them, to pages with multiple animals on them, to full page sketches which I now sell as finished pieces and as limited editions. During these years I was awarded an Artists For Conservation Flag Expedition. I spent 6 weeks with the Painted Dog Conservation project in Zimbabwe sketching all kinds of wildlife including highly endangered African wild dogs. This period of time when sketching was my top priority for 6 weeks made all the difference. I now knew that sketching from life made me far more aware of the movement and anatomy of animals than working from photos had ever done, and as a result I was able to speed up my sketching and could turn to my sketches back in the studio for inspiration. But, even more critically, I  could create compositions in the studio without any reference material, because I now had images of real, moving animals buried deep in my artistic memory. Now I felt I was getting somewhere!

Tomorrow I’ll show how my studio work progressed to become full of color & space. In the meantime, the next artist I’d like to nominate is Hazel Jarvis. We have been on many a sketching jaunt into New York City and Hazel’s work is always fabulous regardless of which medium she uses.

Until tomorrow…
Alison

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Art Inspired by Africa