I decided to use the masking fluid again so I could try and create a slightly out of focus background without the paint flowing onto Ravi.

Next step is the undercoat with a few direction stroke so I know how the hairs will fall on the animals fur.

I added a weak grey wash that would become the shadows for the white hairs on Ravi’s face..

I added a more detailed to the eye by adding black pupil and some white highlights. It’s nice to start with the eye as it gives life to the painting.

With a larger brush I started painting more layers of hair in different browns.

Even more layers of hairs were created and this takes a great deal of time and lots of patience.

It’s a little hard to explain the painting process as it’s just lots of fine brush strokes over lapping the previous layer.

I finish off by lots of fine hairs on Ravi’s face this was lots of re work to get the stripe under it’s eye just right. Also the white face was a little hard to show the hairs without making the face look dirty.

As I keep mentioning white is very hard to work with and get a nice thin consistency without it becoming too transparent. It’s also hard to get a nice flowing white paint for the whiskers. The black ones are easy as slightly watered down black is still opaque.

I also made the red panda into a small fridge magnet that I could sell at the Australia Zoo Market.

Ravi is used to promote my art gallery at Possum Park and I’m quite fond of this little red panda guiding customer down towards the cottage.