Capture wildlife in the wild

DEMONSTRATION Herring Gulls on the Shore

This article is published in the November 2019 issue of The Artist

Demonstration Herring Gulls on the Shore

Capture wildlife in the wild

Becky Thorley-Fox shares the secrets of capturing wildlife from life, drawing and painting on the spot.

Drawing and painting wildlife in the field is a challenging but highly rewarding pursuit. A photo only offers a frozen moment and doesn’t reflect the way the eye naturally sees. Getting to know a species through drawing and painting will bring freshness and spontaneity to your work. Your constantly moving subject and changing weather conditions employs all the senses and demands your full attention and keen observation skills.

Behind every painting there will have been many hours spent sketching and getting to know a species. You need to have a good sense of a bird or animal’s form and movement. Begin with subjects close to hand and familiar to you – birds in your garden is a great way to start or visit local lakes to draw larger birds such as geese, ducks and swans. Nature reserves or zoos also offer a way to get close to a subject. Day trips or longer stays on our coastal islands is one of my favourite ways to spend time drawing and painting wildlife. I’ve really enjoyed working on Bardsey Island, Skomer Island and the Isle of May and look forward to visiting others.

STAGE ONE

After having spent some time sketching on paper to warm up and get my eye in I look for a potential painting moment and seize it with just a few lines in order to get the composition and proportions down. I often rub this out and start again if my subjects leave suddenly or something else catches my eye.

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STAGE TWO

You need to start painting quickly before your scene changes too much. I could tell gulls were likely to be here some time – the perfect opportunity for a study! They were amongst a crowd of gulls which was very helpful, as I could refer to others in similar poses if they moved. I painted in the shadow areas, then established a basic form that I could continue to shape.

STAGE THREE

I began to blend my shadows around the form and into the light areas. It was a bright sunny day and the blue sky could be seen reflecting in the shadows on the head. There were moving lines of light shining up from the water on the underside of the gulls. I marked out surrounding pebbles as I needed to keep working on the whole scene – with wildlife there is the risk of working in isolation as you focus on getting the form in before it leaves. Every part of the scene is relative and things can change quickly so it’s important to get down an overall impression and its light quality. I arranged the pebbles to create a circular-shaped composition, offsetting the central focus with a large pebble to the left to lead the eye in.

STAGE FOUR

I worked fast to cover the canvas by painting the main mid-colour of each area before working in the colour nuances, highlights, low lights and then the details. I left the background pebbles softer to create a sense of space and depth within the scene.

FINISHED PAINTING

Herring Gulls on the Shore, oil on canvas 12” x 16”. For the final stage I tied the scene together with further work on form, light and texture across the painting, refining some of the details and making any minor adjustments where needed.