Part 2 Follow the thoughts and painting processes of Julie Askew as she works from sketches to produce a meaningful painting of an endangered animal

Acrylic

Observe that the coloured oryx on the right-hand page of my field sketchbook actually became one of the more faint animals in the completed painting on page 33. Your reference must inspire, not tie you down.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

■ Use paint to tell a story

■ How to transfer sketches into paintings

■ Ideas and techniques for painting with acrylic

A quick sketch of simple shapes.

Once the adventure of a research field expedition is behind you and you have translated the drive and excitement into some sort of useful reasoning, the studio and big empty canvases await. This is my favourite moment. Just back from an expedition to Oman, I am so inspired by the vast array of contrasting environments and all the colour palettes that come with it, how to summarise and apply the left side of the brain? Where do I start? This is a moment to treasure; the ideas taking shape in my head and the big white canvas begging me to splosh paint all over it.

First thoughts

I began by sitting down with my sketchbooks, flicking through to find the material I needed for the ideas that were taking shape (see sketchbook entries, above and left). I always use Pink Pig sketchbooks from Yorkshire; they are great quality, practical and tough for fieldwork. The sketchbooks immediately bring back each situation and the atmosphere in the field.

For the following demonstration painting, I want to focus on the pages I have of Arabian oryx and the environment they are in, which were shown last month. This was one of the main reasons for the expedition and it is one of the rare success stories in conservation. The Arabian oryx was extinct in the wild 20 years ago, due to hunting, and is only now, thanks to intensive breeding programmes, stable in numbers in their native lands. Although not accessible to the public, they are now kept and protected in vast enclosures, the size of a small country.