Wild cats! Well, not really wild, although they are probably pretty miffed. Quite a few years ago, when we still lived on the outskirts of Montreal, we visited the Biodome at the old Montreal Olympic site. It’s a pretty good use of the old Olympic velodome; basically a zoo but with different areas devoted to different types of habitat. There is a tropical region that you can wander through, with birds and animals free-living amongst the trees. There is also a typical Laurentian region (i.e. the habitat around Montreal), with the sort of shorebirds, fish and animals seen there (no Black Bears, though), and an Antarctic region with a lot of penguins (behind glass in this case, or it would be pretty chilly). Somewhere in amongst all of that was an exhibit made to look like a high rocky cliff, with some logs and vegetation. I remember there was a sort of mesh curtain between us and the cliff (which was set pretty far back from the viewing area) that I believe was there to stop the occupants being bothered by the sight of the visitors. Way back, and high up in the cliff face, was a cleft, and in that were two Canadian Lynx. I tried a couple of photos, not expecting much, using my bridge camera on maximum optical zoom (around then, that was probably only 12x, or possibly 16x) and, to my surprise, managed a half-way decent shot! I’ve always liked the composition and decided to try to do it justice in a painting.
Maybe not the sharpest of images, but quite remarkable given the distance and that it was taken through a mesh curtain! These really are the most wonderful-looking animals, a bit like Bobcats but slightly larger, less spotted and with much bigger tufts on the ears. They are usually solitary, except for a brief period in the breeding season, so this is probably not a totally natural pose, but I do like the way they are snuggled together. I don’t know the sexes of the animals (there is no way to tell), but in my head I felt the one sitting more upright was a male and the other a female (I’m probably completely wrong on that!).
I contemplated using coloured pencil (especially the new set, still to come out of the tin in anger) but decided to go with my trusty watercolour pencils and was pleased that I did. I started with a pretty detailed drawing in graphite, to make sure that the features were all placed correctly (I was enlarging from the photo a little, too) and then followed my usual procedure to paint in the eyes and noses (beaks when doing birds). I always feel if I get those looking right, then the rest will just flow, because the personality is all in the eyes. In this case, the direction of the gaze of the animals, especially the upper one, was changed to have him looking directly at the viewer rather than off to the side slightly; I do think this stare captures the attention. For once I had the camera nearby and snapped a ‘work in progress’ shot when I had just about finished the first cat. I think that it captures something of my method with this piece.
I actually completed both cats before starting on the surrounding rocks and wood. It was a surprisingly colourful cliff! The final touch was the whiskers, completed using the same white pigment ink pen that I used for the same purpose when I painted our own pet cats (‘The Girls’). I did enjoy working on this picture, the watercolour pencils do remain my favourite medium right now.
‘Canadian Lynx’, 11 x 15 inch watercolour pencil (Caran d’Ache Supracolor, Derwent Watercolour, Staedler Karat) and pigment ink pen (Uniball Signo) on 140 lb cold press watercolour paper (Canson XL),
Sandra Dennis Art 