Animal And Wildlife Challenge Dec 2025/Jan 2026

[Enyaw]

Oops… sorry

 

[Grapes]

Wayne, you wrote valuable information for someone who doen't mix own blacks. In pleinair and landscape it's essential information! @Enyaw
Was painting a lion so my earlier answer became a little short.

 

[pcj]

Grapes: Your little squirrel is lovely. You captured his expression very well.
Cheers
Patricia

 

[Grapes]

Thank you, Patricia!

Here's an oil painting of the lion but this is different than the one I posted before. Again, was trying out color combinations on wildlife.

 

[Jade]

The colours look great! Beautiful eyes too

 

[ams]

Love it Grapes.

 

[Grapes]

Jade & Anne, thanks!
Forgot to add the whiskers ..

 

[Jade]

Oh deer
Inktense and Caran d'ache neocolour on d and s haanmuhle paper

 

[Enyaw]

great app of color Grapes

intense stare of innocence .. Jade ..

 

[Joy]

Grapes, that looks very good, and I like the variety of colors. Since I do the whiskers last, I forget, too. I have a tendency to make them too thick and unnatural. I am finishing up my lion and tried to put on whiskers but they don't look natural.

Jade, you really managed to do a lot this challenge. The Inktense looks very good; you are doing well with it.

 

[Jade]

Thanks Joy. I wanted to squeeze in at least one this week. I think also for me at least, inktense works better with fine liners. I'll keep playing.

Grapes and Joy, yup, whiskers are easy to forget. I hadn't noticed tbh as I just loved the lion anyway.

 

[Joy]

This was done on Arches 140CP, 8 x10. Limited palette of Raw Sienna, Raw Umber, Rose Madder and Pthalo Blue. I don't like the look of the texture of the fur, so it is overworked. I wasn't going to do a BG, but wanted to the pale areas to have some contrast so I added one.

Patricia, thanks ever so much for hosting and supplying such inspirational reference material. It is wonderful to see so many participants!

 

[Jade]

Ooh I like this Joy. It doesn't look overworked to me at all and there's something that works really well about the background colours. Different enough but complimentary. you're inspiring me to think about doing backgrounds...

Patricia yes I agree with Joy. Thank you very much for the wonderful material, I'm really enjoying these challenges and it's lovely seeing everyone's work too. I am sure it's quite intensive behind the scenes.

 

[Jade]

I decided to add a little background to Oh Deer after seeing Joy's recent work. I haven't tried this before but think it works ok here with inktense tho a little blotchy around the antlers.

 

[ams]

Jade, nice work. Looks like you are having lots of fun with the Caran D'Ache and Inktense. They keep getting better and better.

Joy, I love your lioness. Beautiful softness on the fur and great work on the eyes. I like your soft background too.

Jade, your background added later worked very well.

I'm working on one more too. I have the White Brahman Cow pencil sketch done and I'm ready to add the ink. Next step will be the local color and shading.

 

[Joy]

Jade, I like the BG. It looks more natural to me and the color complements it well. I have mainly been using a limited palette, as I find it is less decision making when painting. The world's greatest watercolorists generally only have a dozen or less colors total in their palettes, choosing maybe six or so per painting.

 

[pcj]

Grapes: I love your lion ! The brushstrokes really give texture to his fur. Your colour combinations
worked really well. His expression is great too.
Cheers
Patricia

 

[pcj]

Jade: I Love both versions of your deer. His eyes are lovely. The background
works really well in the 2nd one.
Cheers
Patricia

 

[Jade]

Thank you very much Patricia! Joy inspired me to try a background. It's definitely easier with inktense than pencil.

Thank you Joy! I'm sort of doing a limited palette already as I haven't practiced mixing the inktense too much but I might try and limit them further... Good idea.

Thank you Anne. I appreciate that. I have always liked your style and personally prefer the fineliners alongside the inktense on my work too. Yes, I was thinking of selling the inktense and Caran d'ache but... I think I'm enjoying it now!

 

[pcj]

Joy: Your lioness is lovely. I like the texture of her fur, it looks exactly like
a lionesses smooth fur. Her expression is great . Your colour combinations
worked very well.
Cheers
Patricia