Animal and Wildlife Art Lessons
"Cienega"
By Julie T. Chapman
www.artistinnature.com
”Julie T. Chapman is a Signature Member of the Society of Animal Artists and the American Academy of Women Artists. She has shown in numerous national and international juried and invitational exhibitions, won some terrific awards, and offers a yearly artist workshop for aspiring animal artists. Her work hangs in a number of galleries in the western U.S. and can also be seen on her website. She offers a monthly email ‘ArtZine’ with news, images and art musings – sign up at her website”.
SO...the whole process
starts with sitting down to my drawing table with the germ
of an 
idea...sometimes an awfully vague germ, such as "something
with cougars". Which is what happened in this case.
I hauled out my reference slides on cougars and found some shots that got me excited with the potential of putting together an idea based on "coming to water" - the scarce and precious pools in the southern deserts.
Once I had the slides in hand, I assembled the material by drawing this working sketch that will serve as a guide during the actual painting. I make notes all over these sketches about colors, paint treatment, adjustments to composition, yada yada yada. The sketch here is about, oh, 5" x 8", or maybe less. I could tell you exactly, but then I'd have to get up and go measure it.
Here's the drawing transferred
to my full-size 24x30 handmade canvas panel. (Since I was
lazy and shot this on my easel in my studio, instead of in
my flood-lit photography room that's down two flights of stairs,
the light's a bit uneven. C'est la vie).
I don't use any particular methods to transfer the drawing - just "look at the working sketch and approximate it on the canvas".
Of course, I say that now - no doubt it'll come back to bite me in the butt when I get around to doing something REALLY big (eg, larger than 30x40), and I'll have to go to gridding or something obnoxious like that.
This is my first step involving
color.
I use acrylic paints thinned with water to put down the initial layer on the canvas. This underpainting will influence the way the final colors appear, and will show through in places depending on the thinness of my oils.
Since the acrylic dries in approximately 47 seconds, and since I'm one really impatient person, it's a match made in heaven.
For this particular piece, I'm after the strong light of the desert sun, and a hot gold underpainting will influence that.