Step 1 - Drawing/Sketch


I observed and photographed this female snow leopard, Cloe, during my recent photo shoot at Big Cat Rescue in Florida. The snow leopard is one of the most elegant and elusive of all the great cats. It is very rare to encounter one in the wild. There are only an estimated 4,500 to 7,000 of these big cats left in the wild.

"The snow leopard is an endangered big cat that inhabits the rugged and mountainous terrain of Central Asia and the Himalayan region. It is currently threatened by hunting for the illegal wildlife trade and revenge killings by herders; habitat loss; and diminished food supply." WorldWildlife.org

This leopard shyly, inch by inch, crept from her cave and intently stared at me, to check me out.

Step 2 - Underpainting

I transferred my drawing onto Wallis museum grade sanded pastel paper with a 3H graphite pencil. Working upright on an easel, I blocked in the darks with a dark blue hard pastel, then sprayed the sheet while laying it flat, with water. Once the image is dry, I can begin adding color.

As you can see, I have blocked in my middle tone areas with NuPastels, a harder soft pastel stick. I work back and forth from one area to another, from mid-tone darks to mid-tone lights building up the image in my preliminary base colors. I usually wait until closer tot he end of the painting to put in the eyes, however for demonstartion purposes, I have painted them sooner.

Another note... I routinely tint my Wallis paper with cadmium red light or cadmium orange acrylic ink before beginning a wildlife pastel painting, however, with Cloe, I wanted to her on the white background.

Step 3 - Painting

I finished blocking in the background darks very loosely and then layered lighter colors on top in various shades over selected areas to create the rock colors and texture. I did not want to overwork the rock den.

I also varied the pressure of my pastel stick and used softer pastels. I stepped back often to see my work. Lastly, I added the darkest darks and the lightest lights very sparingly to make the cat pop.

I will look at this now in my studio for several days to make adjustments if necessary.

Step 4 - Adjustments

I left this painting hanging in my studio for a few days and made some adjustments including darkening the body at it recedes into the cave, refining the paws and rocks. I will continue to make minor changes if necessary, but at this point am very happy with it and can settle down to titling it!

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