African Wild Dog-finished!

What a gift Nature gave us with the African Wild Dog, sporting it's colourful patchwork coat and the paddle shaped ears... I just love those ears!

Spanning over a few months, working on and off, I have finished my large drawing of this gorgeous wild dog and loved every minute of working on him.

Set up on easel due to it's large size and being in portrait format, it was easy to step back and assess for values but I pulled out my large mirror to reverse the image just to double check everything as I neared the end.

Sure enough, there were quite a few things to adjust and they jump out so easily when the image is reversed. This is a handy tip for nearly every drawing as the brain forms an interpretation of the image that might not be correct.

I've named this drawing 'The Edge of Dusk' in memory of the time of day that my daughter and I sat and watched this pack of dogs in Linyati area of Botswana whilst out on safari.

The evening shadows were lengthening as the African sun was sinking towards the horizon. The pack were resting, mainly along the dirt road and then triggered my some innate response, one moved off and the others sprang into action and followed.

Within minutes they had made a kill, a young kudu, with us in hot pursuit crashing through the bush to arrive seconds later to see the antelope already dismantled. All the adults then stepped back and let the half grown pups and the alpha female feed, an exemplary behaviour of this species and a caring that is not shown in many others. A great memory.

This drawing has just been juried into the Society of Animal Artists International Exhibition.