Pip McGarry - 01:35:21

Tuition - Wild About Oil with Pip McGarry

This complete guide to painting wild animals works from the basic pencil outline through the oil sketch to the finished studio painting.

Part instructional film and part documentary, Pip spends time in the Yorkshire Wildlife Park sketching and talking to the keepers about the animals, their characters and habits. It all adds up to a fascinating and varied approach that makes you want to keep watching.

At the start, you’ll see the initial sketch of a lion, where Pip emphasises the importance of choosing a natural pose the animal will hold long enough for you to get the image down. Back in the studio, he shows you how to use oils to get the outline of an elephant, explaining how these basic shapes will determine the success of the finished painting as well as how to put in a background that complements the main image rather than dominating it.

After a return visit to the park to look at zebras, Pip returns to the studio to paint an ostrich from a photograph. This demonstration picks up where the elephant left off, with the initial sketch done and shows the more detailed work required to complete the painting.

Thoroughly entertaining, this is a film you’ll learn a lot from without feeling as if you’re in class.