As you probably know, Painted Dogs (African wild dogs) are highly social. They rarely fight, even over food (unlike most other predators), and will regurgitate food for sick and injured adults in their pack. During my recent travels in southern Africa I saw 4 different packs, and that included a lot of pups. Every time they finished playing they would all flop down together, in a pile. There were heads on backs, feet on heads, tails in faces and ears everywhere – a perfect expression of their highly developed social nature, and a perfect painting composition!    

Crashed field sketch, Painted dogs, African wild dogs, in watercolor by Alison Nicholls

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 browsing elephants.
Until then…
Alison
www.ArtInspiredbyAfrica.com