highland tigers

with Wild Life Drawing

Once again, the chance to relax with some focussed drawing of beautiful British wildlife – this time it was the Scottish Wildcat. We had reference images of these feisty felines to work from: a breeding pair in the Cairngorms that have successfully brought a number of kittens and grand-kittens into the world. These offspring have since been released into the forest, and the species is slowly making its way back to its ecological niche in the landscape thanks to this captive breeding and reintroduction programme.

They might look like your average tabbies, but they really put the wild into wildcat. They are a separate lineage from domestic moggies (which are descendants from African Wildcats) and are a subspecies of the European Wildcat which is found, as the name suggests, across the continent. The Scottish ones have suffered from persecution and more recently, habitat loss, as well as interbreeding with feral cats. The organisation we were working with has a trap, neuter, vaccinate, return policy with feral cats, and actually the presence of a healthy, neutered, feral population prevents new domestic cats encroaching on the territory and potentially interbreeding with the wildcats.

Thankfully, although the wildcats take the odd pheasant, they are well-loved and part of the heritage of this part of the country, so there are fewer barriers to this initiative as opposed to other potential reintroduction projects involving larger or more impactful species.

Artwork

I did some practise sketches before the class using my grey fineliners:

And then while we listened to Hannah as she spoke about her work, I drew Margaret, the breeding female in amongst the pine branches, and a small sketch of her husband, Cranachan:

Such beautiful animals!