Arctic Travelers

    I recently finished a narrative painting of a group of muskox, geese, and a girl traveling via steamboat through icy arctic waters. For the sketching phase of this painting I went back to charcoal and graphite. I usually do a series of study sketches before each painting, especially if it involves animals and people that I have not painted before. For this painting I spent a lot of time rendering it in graphite before moving on to painting.

 I started with a design for a steamboat

The drawing took over my whole dining table for a while.

Why yes, I do use yams to hold down the corners of paper that wants to curl.

Then I added the big woolly beasts to the boat, and snow geese to the sky

 

Muskox up close. I love drawing the texture of animal hair.

 I put the finished product on my studio wall to use as a reference for the acrylic version.

I kept the acrylic version small. 11x21 on paper

 

 The navigator hard at work in her glowing cabin

 

 One muskox at a time

An up close look at this guy. 

They weave their way through icebergs under a starry sky.