black leopard,more progress

because of the amount of layering going on here progress is slow but steady,ive now had the first opportunity during this piece to use some really soft(for me)grades of pencil and have incorporated some 4 and 6B in the darker areas.

black leopard drawing progress

the eyes are now in place and you can now judge for yourself the 'mood' of the cat.more layers of graphite have been added to darken the image and more fur details added.

black leopard drawing progression

the addition of more tonal layers and some fur detail and the cat is now starting to appear.there are upto 7 layers of graphite now in the darker areas each worked from hard to softer grades of pencil.

graphite work in progress

after a break from graphite for the past couple of weeks whilst i experimented with oils ive resumed work on this piece of a black leopard that i last worked on at the start of march.i was getting a little rusty and with a graphite workshop coming up next weekend i thought it prudent to get back into the swing of things with pencils by way of preparation.here you can see some relatively finished areas of the drawing and other areas where i have started the layering process to build up tone.

The Egret Pool 6"x12" oil on board

Presenting 'snow cub' 9"x11.5" oil

This is my first completed animal oil painting of a snow leopard cub,in fact exactly the same cub as i depicted in an earlier pencil drawing.i thought it would make the ideal subject for my first painting.The colours here appear a little more harsh than in real life but you get the idea.For the time being ive caught the oil painting bug and hope to be posting more oils in the not too distant future.hope you all like it.

Blog update

As many of my regular readers will no doubt have noticed i have changed the name of my blog from the graphite art of clive meredith to clive meredith wildlife art.
the reasoning behind this is that after a long lay off from coloured works i have recently begun to work in oils again after 15 years of working exclusively in graphite.
i do hope this wont stop my graphite art fans from stopping by as i certainly havn't finished working in the medium indeed i still have an unfinished pencil piece on the drawing board.
i will be posting more art here shortly although it will be a short break before the new oils start to appear but i hope you'll bear with me and look forward to hearing your thoughts on the new works(but please be gentle as its been a while since i held a paintbrush)

new cat study underway

ive spent a couple of days toning the background to this new piece.It is intended to be a study of a black leopard but unlike the previous very cute snow leopard cub this one is far from cute.i wanted to show something of the latent power and aggression commonly associated with black leopards in a subtle manner.so in this instance i will use body posture and the look in the eyes to try and convey the atmosphere of a coiled spring which could unwind violently at any moment.whether i pull it off or not remains to be seen and i hope the end result wont be too scary for potential buyers!