Painting pictures of wildlife is often one of the more difficult subjects to tackle. For many artists, there is a lot of planning and preparation which goes into creating the perfect wildlife pictures and getting every detail spot on. Whether you’re an artist who’s looking to brush up on your wildlife work or are about to try painting wildlife scenes for the first time, these top tips will help you to perfect your wildlife art and produce paintings which you’ll be forever proud of.

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Use Real Life Subjects

When painting wildlife, there are so many more elements that need to be taken into consideration than just the animal or animals themselves. You should try to sketch and paint from real life as often as possible, as this will enable you to see how the animals interact in their natural habitat and create paintings that are as true to life as possible. If it’s not possible to paint and sketch from real life or you are worried about alerting the wildlife to your presence and scaring them away, you might want to consider the use of a trail camera, which you can use to record the wildlife in their natural habitat for a reference. See a guide to the best trail cameras here.

Refining Your Sketches

It’s always tempting to skip straight to the painting stage after you’re drawn up a sketch, however experts say that it always pays off later on down the line to refine and re-refine your sketches before you let any paint touch the paper. You should begin by blocking with basic shapes in several stages and try to represent as much of the animal as possible with these shapes. Then, art experts recommend starting with a focal point, for example an eye, and measuring vital points from this with your pencil. Next, you should refine the sketch, ensuring that the shapes of limbs and facial features are accurate, along with checking vertical and horizontal alignments. This provides you with a good framework for painting or developing layers with confidence.

Stay Stocked Up

If you are observing and painting wildlife from real life, it’s important to ensure that you’re fully stocked up on all the art supplies that you will need and more. When you’re painting wildlife, time is definitely something which is not only your side and you can’t afford to have to run back home for supplies if you run out. Overstocking, rather than understocking, on the equipment that you take with you is definitely the best situation to be in.

Planning

Last but not least, careful planning is essential when you’re going to create a wildlife painting. Deciding which animals you are going to paint, where you are going to find references, and the materials which you are going to use is important. When you are constructing a scene, there are many different elements which should be considered, which is why experts recommend planning your scene on tracing paper first so that you can make any changes if necessary.

Wildlife is a great branch of art that every artist should try at least once!