How I Sketch and Watercolor African Elephant

This is one of the fun and challenging painting session about this majestic elephant.

I found the original photo reference from pinterest. I loved the original photo as it tells alot of story behind this hurt African elephant. One broken tusk and another one was lost. True enough, a photo can tells a million words and this is how effective and the impact it brings to the audience.

I am using etchr lab 100% cotton sketchbook for this project.

First , I an using a 2H pencil to draft the outline of the elephant. As the paper was quite rough and I have to lay more deeper marks in order for lines to appear more visible.The size and composition is important as I don’t want my sketch to be too small or too big.

I was having some difficulty on making the details on the trunk and eye areas. I have to repeatlly lay deeper lines otherwise it will not show much contrast.

The first layer I had applied a light tint of yellow ochre as base color. This was due to there is light shining to the left side of both elephants. After the 1st layer, I started for subsequent layers to create dark shadows on the right side of the elephant. As I worked around with the colors, I have to overcome some unsightly dry brush strokes . Indeed, 100% cotton paper always turn out to be exceptional dry. I had to constantly wet my brush in order to achieve a smoother effect.

Overall, I loved the painting but I still need to work more on the details to have the realistic look