Practicing for Painting Animals From Life - Polar Bear Edition

With warmer days rapidly approaching (at last!) my mind has been on the forms of art practice and self-studying that will become a lot more comfortable to do in spring and summer. One of the things I am looking forward to is drawing and painting animals from life again. Of course, if you have pets you have the opportunity to draw from life at any time of year from the comfort of your own home, wrapped in a toasty blanket with a cup of tea. I love sketching our cats! The warmer months really expand the range of animals accessible to me though. Both for local wildlife, and for visiting parks and sanctuaries.

To prepare myself for these art trips I have started some subject-focused practice at home, using reference I have gathered during previous outings. What do I mean by subject-focused? Well I have certain aims in mind for a trip to Yorkshire Wildlife Park coming up in spring, and I am tailoring my practice sessions now around those aims. These are broken down into the medium and method I want to use (pencil and watercolour), and the animals I want to study (bears and big cats). By tailoring my art studying now around what I want to do, I better prepare myself for doing the things I actually want to do. This concept is something that I try to keep in mind whenever I am planning any form of self studying.

Close-up of a graphite pencil and watercolour sketch of the polar bear Hamish scratching his neck. Completed yesterday, 2025.

Studying a polar bear in pencil and watercolour

I want to actually paint during this first upcoming trip. So my focus has been on practicing and continuously developing a relatively fast method of using watercolour. Sitting down to create a carefully planned out illustration with intricate linework, colour mixing tests, and several layers of watercolour rendering is not a practical approach for painting from life. Time constraints and all. Limitation can birth creativity though, and this is no different.

Yesterday I taped a piece of watercolour paper down and sketched out a polar bear using reference I captured during my previous visit. I wanted to work quickly, so my goal was to loosely sketch in the pose of the bear then apply a few layers of watercolour. The focus of the study is the bear itself and the pose, so the vast majority of the pencilling time went into capturing the pose and establishing a centre of interest. In this case, I wanted the centre of interest to be the bear scratching his neck, so I paid the most attention to the head, neck, and paw involved. As the eye moves away from this area, there is less and less pencil.

I kept my tools minimal. One pencil, 0.5 mm HB. A kneaded eraser. One brush, a No.10 round. No more than six colours. Somewhat replicating the conditions of painting away from home.

When it came to the watercolour, I focused on quickly but intentionally observing and capturing what I could see. Once again, the polar bear was what I was studying, and the background played only a supporting role. So most of the painting time went into the bear and less so with the background. When one area needed to dry, I painted somewhere else. Always progressing the sketch when possible, since you don’t know how long it may take to dry when outside.

The finished sketch of Hamish the polar bear, in graphite pencil and watercolour.

Wait where can you paint polar bears from life?

Last year I visited the Yorkshire Wildlife Park near Doncaster for the first time. Sketchbook and pencils in hand, I went out ready to fill pages with animal gestures and studies. Only to be rained on! I was able to fit a little bit of sketching from life in during a dry window, lasting around 10 minutes. Unfortunately my travel watercolour kit stayed firmly in my bag due to the persistent rain. Where did the break in rain briefly allow me to draw? At Project Polar.

In Yorkshire Wildlife Park is Project Polar, currently home to six polar bears. Did you know the climate of Yorkshire is apparently similar to the conditions polar bears live in during summer months in Canada? The park has developed 10 acres of land into a reserve replicating the rocky terrain and lakes of their natural habitat. When I visited last year there were bears diving and swimming in one of the lakes, a bear climbing up a rocky hillside, and one wandered off to sleep in a cave built into a hill. Read more about the reserve and their mission here: Project Polar. I knew polar bears are massive in theory, but seeing them was a whole other thing. They. Are. Huge.

Last year’s visit was what inspired my colour pencil and watercolour piece Muddy Quarrel, after I saw two bears play fighting in the mud. If I couldn’t paint while I was there, I was determined to paint afterwards! I used a similar method as detailed above, of a pencil drawing followed by loose watercolour washes. In fact, one of the bears in that was Hamish!

Until next time, happy creating!