Painting a leopard

Learn to draw by Tissa Hewavitharana

The leopard is a popular animal for artists, especially for wildlife artists to paint. Leopards are found in the jungles and wildlife sanctuaries and their staple food is meat.

The leopard is somewhat a domestic cat and so is familiar in appearance. The graceful way it moves gives the impression of a majestic look. It is likely to lie fairly still for a long time, giving you time to study and paint.

Figure 1: The sketch shows the outline. I have drawn three oval shape circles with a 2B pencil to get the correct formation of the animal before painting.

Figure 1A shows a complete structure of the animal. A wash of pale yellow ochore is applied over the whole body before going into details. Figure 2 shows an outline sketch, a profile of the leopard on the move, drawn with a 2B pencil and 2A a coloured sketch.

Notice the basic outlines drawn in oval shape in figure 2 to give the formation of the body before painting. In painting a thin layer of yellow orchore is applied.

After the paint is dried you may introduce the spots with a pointed brush.

In Figure 3A a complete coloured painting is shown. At first a pale yellow wash is applied over the body and later shades of dark colour applied to show the texture of the skin.

Finally, spots are shown on the leopard's body done with a fine pointed brush or thin nib pen. Next the ears, toes, claws, nose and eyes are defined with a fine brush. A mixture of burnt sienna with little black is used to build up the small dark areas of fur on the muzzle and around the eyes, nostrils, mouth and eyes. The drawing paper to be used is 180 grams Kent paper or 150 gram Whatman paper. Brushes Sable hair or Windsor and Newton No. 1,2,3, 6 or 8. To get your colour mixture perfect you may do several paintings.