Tuition - Drawing and Painting Cats with Vic Bearcroft

On this informative and inspirational video, Vic Bearcroft, along with his inquisitive assistant Marley, takes you on a fantastic furry adventure, showing you how to capture beautiful cats, both big and small using pen, ink and a little bit of feline finesse.

Out on location at Woodside Wildlife Park, Vic starts with some preliminary sketches, looking at proportion and anatomical structure, sharing his tried and tested geometric techniques. Capturing many different poses, Vic explains how using reference photographs as well as location sketches give you a range of tools to compose and structure your final piece.

Back in the studio, Vic moves on to a tonal study of Marley using Indian Ink. By building up layers of tone and depth, Vic demonstrates how using just one colour and one brush can create a portrait with real atmosphere and charm – something Marley happily agrees with.

Armed with his reference photos and location sketches, Vic turns his attentions to the magnificent Lynx, starting out with combining elements of different sketches to finalise the composition. Using an underpinning sketch, Vic shows you how ink pen hatching techniques can create texture, tone and depth – perfect for combining with washes and tonal shadow to capture the majesty of the big cat.