Drawing & Painting Wild Animals

Vic Bearcroft is a self-taught professional wildlife and pet portrait artist, who specialises in pastel on velour, but also works in pencil, watercolour, coloured pencil, charcoal and acrylic media. Having spent part of his childhood in Kenya, Vic has been drawing animals since he could hold a pencil. Being passionate about wildlife in general, and particularly interested in wolves, Vic works with a large number of animal welfare and conservation organisations worldwide, donating prints, merchandise and funds. He says: “While I consider myself to be a wildlife artist, I prefer to paint close-up intimate portraits of animals as individuals, rather than in landscape settings. My aim is to capture not only the likeness of the subject in my painting, but also the life and soul in its eyes.”

Introduction 6

Materials 8

Impact: tone and colour 20

Getting started 24

Big cats 32

Step-by-step: Tiger 42

Ungulates 48

Step-by-step: Zebra 58

Bears 64

Step-by-step: Panda 74

Pachyderms 82

Step-by-step: Asian Elephant 90

Great apes 94

Step-by-step: Chimpanzee 102

Canids 108

Step-by-step: Wolf 120

Index 128