Leopard—Under Construction

As you can tell from browsing my web site, I love wild animals…particularly big cats. I’ve recently begun work on a 16” x 20” watercolor of this beautiful leopard. The huge tree the leopard is climbing down provides a wonderful composition that mirrors the beautiful features of the leopard’s body.

Leopard – Unfinished painting shown at full size.

Jaguars and leopards look very similar, but the jaguar is a little stockier and has a black spot inside each of the black and gold rosettes on its fur. Leopards, by contrast, have the rosettes but no black spot inside, and they have a somewhat slimmer build and face.

Leopard – Unfinished closeup showing more detail of leopard’s body.

My goal with this painting is to capture the direct stare of this fascinating animal. He seems to be looking directly at the viewer. There are a lot of spots and tree bark to paint, but I hope the final product warrants the time. Please check back to see the finished painting…hopefully in the next couple of weeks. Note: I used a reference photograph taken by Dr. Eric Gurwin, an ophthalmologist and extremely talented photographer who took the photograph on a recent wildlife safari to Africa.

This entry was posted in New Works.

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