By the end of 2023 I decided that I wanted to create a largeish scale wildlife drawing and I opted for size A2 since that was the paper I had available.  

I choose my references from Wildlife Reference Photos and after a few days of scanning the photographs I fell upon the reference of a Jaguar taken by Stephanie Swayne.

Link here: https://wildlifereferencephotos.com/media.details.php?mediaID=42547

To apply the drawing to an A2 sheet, I use the grid method. I find it the most reliable to scale the drawing to the page and draw the reference onto the paper also making the least the mistakes.

Starting on this piece, I decided to start at the bottom of the page and leave the face and eyes to last. I usually start with the eyes when I draw the animal but wanted to leave it to last to bring the piece together at the very end – I actually won’t be doing this again because it frustrated me too much and by the time I got to the face I wanted to see what the jaguar was going to look like – tested too much of my patience!

The pencils I used were the Derwent Drawing pencils. I’ve used these pencils a few times for some smaller drawings but have never used them for a drawing like this. I found the colours suited the animal really well since I wanted to use tans, browns, reds and yellows throughout the piece.

The pencils have a great ‘creaminess’ to them, almost like a crayon, so I was able to blend the colours together really nicely.

Along with the Derwent Drawing pencils, I used the Faber Castell pencils over the top, drawing on any finer details, such as the fur strokes as I find these pencils to be better creating finer details. I also used a few of the Caran D’ache Luminance pencils to burnish a few colours together.

Because this is a large drawing there was a lot of layering going on. I start with a base colour and add a mid colour and then the top colour on top to create more depth to the colour. I didn’t want the colours to look so ‘flat’.

The main detail I wanted to focus on though was the fur. I drew in each fur stroke, which as you can imagine, takes a lot of time and patience, however by doing this I can create more texture, trying to mimic the way the fur looks and feels.

I knew the chin was going to be the most challenging part so I worked up the side of the jaguar, towards the nose and face. Once I had the mouth area almost complete I decided to draw the chin. 

The chin, in fact, was the most challenging for me in this piece.

I erased the chin 4-5 times before I finally settled on what I was happy with.

I couldn’t quite get the detail I wanted on the chin. I felt at the time that the hairs were not looking fine enough or ‘messy’ enough as I was trying to control the direction of the fur.

When I went into this piece, I told myself not to rely too heavily on the reference photo and to give myself some creative freedom – not every piece of fur had to be exactly copied!

In turn, this ended up being a HUGE challenge due to my past pieces of drawing pet portraits, I usually try my hardest to stick to the reference.

I had to give myself a few breaks and come back to the piece when I was in a better mindset – something I’ve learnt works best when I get ‘stuck’ or frustrated. 

Towards the end of my drawing I’ll take a photo and carefully compare to the reference to see where I can make improvements. I look for areas of improvement; where to apply more colour or deeper colours, areas that could do with more detail or even less detail.

I used a paint pen to create the bright white whiskers and highlights in the eye.

Once I had the Jaguar complete I then moved onto the background.

Most of the backgrounds in my drawings I leave blank so this was definitely something I didn’t want to mess up. I knew I wanted a green background to compliment the colours I had used.

I posted a photo of my drawing into Canva and tried out a few green backgrounds to get a sense of what I wanted.

I used Prismacolor pencils to create the background as I find those pencil’s to be more vibrant. Instead of using the tip of the pencil to colour the background, I used the tip of the pencil to create shavings (using a sharpener) place the shavings onto the paper and using a tissue, blend the colours together.

This way there are less pencil markings on the paper and I can create that ‘softness’ texture.

I completed the Jaguar end of April 2024 and decided to enter the piece into the Royal Melbourne Show.

This was my third drawing to enter in the last few years and it’s always great to see your artwork displayed alongside other talented artists’ creations.

To my absolute surprise, I won first place in the Royal Art, Craft and Cookery competition! Not only that I won best in show! Talk about a surprise!

The most interesting, I found, was the comment from the judges;

“Congratulations on this exquisite portrait, ‘Jaguar’, which is sensitively observed and a dynamic composition. Your use of colour is both sophisticated and confident, and you clearly love drawing. The texture of the nose, and the shine of the eyes, the delicacy of the whiskers, are of particular note. Keep up the incredible work. A masterful work!”

My aim of this piece was to just draw. To draw because I do love drawing and creating artwork, and with this piece I really wanted to create something for myself.

I took my time with this piece and even though it had its frustrations, I trusted the process and ended up having a great time creating it.

I was really pleased the judges were able to see this in my artwork.

This Jaguar is the first of the 4 – 5 I want to draw. I’d like to say it’s a ‘collection’ however I’m onto my third Jaguar now and each Jaguar is quite different. I had a plan on what I wanted each piece to look like, but throughout each piece my ideas change. So for now I’ll go with the flow and see where it all takes me.

Thanks for reading,

Mel x

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