Tiger snoozing

No works in progress this time, I'm afraid. I have just been working flat out to get this last drawing finished ready to get it scanned and framed for my exhibition in August.

This is a tiger from the Wildlife Heritage Foundation photographed by Susan Hughes (thank you, Susan) who volunteers there. I have since made my own visit to the Foundation and have some lovely photographs to draw from: This should help me solve the eternal dilemma that precludes me from entering my work into the main juried shows in this country. They almost always make a point of not allowing artists to submit work that is based on photographic sources that do not belong to them, regardless of whether or not they have permission. I find this enfuriating, as it is rather elitist: many aspiring artists don't have the time, money or even skill to go out and take decent photographs to work from. Most zoo animals do not make good references for wildlife art, as they are often older and overweight due to their circumstances: but how on earth could I afford to go out into the wilds of India and stalk them for photos? Impossible! (This is where the WHF has been a godsend: their cats are mostly in excellent shape and are regularly stimulated by the keepers, so you can get photos of animals that are not completely static!).

The photograph question issue does little to test your artistic mettle - the only reason I can see for them enforcing it is due to potential copyright issues from unscrupulous artists that have not requested permission (or those people that do not have any understand of photographer's copyrights). Surely a simple contract between the artist and photographer could be produced upon request? Many of us are not priviledged enough to access Borneo's Orang-utan's: does that mean that people with more money/resources are at an advantage? probably, but then I guess the world has always operated like that! Diatribe over.

Here's my tiger drawing - this is a photograph of the drawing, pending a scan. Not the best representation of the drawing, as I had trouble with light and adjustments but it'll do for now.