DrawWithMike.net

I have been reviewing some of my old photos, and was inspired by some arctic fox photos I had taken years ago in autumn at a wildlife park. I remembered a wildlife documentary I had seen where the arctic fox were filmed on a snowy stone outcrop in Canada. I dug up some winter photos I had taken of boulders on the shore of a nearby river.

I feel I have enough elements here to recreate the scenes from that documentary. One of the biggest challenges will be to eliminate the strong autumn light in the fox photos, in favour of the soft diffuse light of a winter scene. The other obvious challenge is depicting a white animal, in a snowy environment, with nothing but the darks of the stone outcrop to break up the white.

Here are my reference photos. I once read that Robert Bateman, well known Canadian wildlife artist, said that his art was essentially landscape art that happened to have an animal in it. In other words, he felt that first, he had to create a world for his subject to inhabit, and then he could fit his subject within that world. I’ll try to follow this method.

I will be using my own graphite brush, but the ones that come closest to it in Procreate are the Scopus and the Waratah pencil brushes. You can use these if you want to follow along with me.

So, this drawing will be done in Procreate, using my LS Pencil Brush. The eraser and smudge tools are set to the Soft Airbrush, in the Airbrushing category of the Classic Library. I hardly use these last two tools, but they can come in handy at times. The canvas is 16” x 8” at 300 dpi. 300 dpi allows printing without loss of definition. The grey shade I’m using is hexadecimal 464646, or just take a look at this screenshot below.

Arctic fox mate for life, but are usually solitary in winter when food is more scarce. They reunite in late March to April, which is mating season. They lose their white coats in favour of a grey/brown summer coat sometime in April or early May.

I felt I could create a composition including a pair of foxes in a snowy environment and remain true to their lifecycles, assuming the scene is set in spring in northern Canada.

Here is an outline of my composition, in case you’d like to follow along.

As I explained earlier, I want to create the landscape first. It seems like I’m giving myself more work by drawing stone what will be hidden by the foxes, but by drawing the foxes on a separate layer above, I can resize them and move them until I’m happy with the way they fit in the scene.

I started in the upper right corner. I’m using 3 layers to create the stone texture: a base layer done loosely using an air brush, a texture layer above, set to multiply, where I used my pencil brush to create irregular, random circular strokes, and a layer above that, set to normal, where I can detail cracks in the stone still using my pencil brush. Here are step-by-step screenshots of the progressive layers. This is how it looks so far. I’ll work my way down behind the fox using the same method.

I'm really looking forward to watching this!

Just a couple of quick comments, because I'm working hard on the next video.... First, I remember seeing a Bateman painting nearing completion - featuring a wolf standing in water. It's a hazy recollection from 30+ years ago, but what struck me was that he'd completed the entire scene with a white wolf-shaped hole in it. So, I can fully understand your point about creating a world first. I've done the same myself since, and it often just feels "right".

Second:

Laurene wrote: The other obvious challenge is depicting a white animal, in a snowy environment, with nothing but the darks of the stone outcrop to break up the white.

It does sound like a challenge, but the hair - even the very fine hair of the fox - will create internal shadows. The fox itself will cast a shadow, however soft-edged. And you have the choice of lighting direction, so you can light it to best suit your composition.

OK... chair pulled up.... waiting impatiently...

Mike Sibley wrote: Sat Jan 24, 2026 6:31 pm It does sound like a challenge, but the hair - even the very fine hair of the fox - will create internal shadows. The fox itself will cast a shadow, however soft-edged. And you have the choice of lighting direction, so you can light it to best suit your composition.

Thanks for that advice Mike. It already gives me a good idea of how to proceed! Your last video was also very timely. It helped me work out my composition, and I’m looking forward to the next one. Having the foxes on a separate layer gives me the flexibility to make changes after I watch it.

This is where I’m stopping today. Progress is slow, but it’s actually very relaxing. There’s really no right or wrong because stone texture varies so much. I’m enjoying taking my time with it. I took a screenshot in order to give an idea of how zoomed in my canvas is. It makes it easier to see. Any more though, and you can get lost in busy detail that ruins the overall look.

The stone outcrop is progressing. I’m still only using the same 3 layers I described earlier, and the pencil brush as well as the eraser brush. I’m also still using the same shade of grey.

I can vary the darkness of my strokes by increasing or decreasing the pressure on my stylus, or by changing the opacity of the brush using the slider on the sidebar. Varying the opacity of the eraser, I can mimic using Blu-Tack on paper, meaning I can lift as much or as little pencil strokes as I like. The sun direction is indicated in the upper left corner. It won’t be a strong light source, but it helps me model the bumps and cracks in the stone.

The stone outcrop is completed now, still using the methods described earlier. I can always go back to edit anything that doesn’t look right to me as I add other elements. The stone in the upper left is furthest from the viewer, so I tried to draw more loosely, to suggest depth. This is a pretty raw environment. It consists pretty much of stone, snow and ice. I’m leaving a space for a dark winter sky with a low late afternoon sun. I’m hoping that this harsh background will contrast well with the softness and lightness of the Arctic fox. These are the areas where I will be starting to draw the snow and ice. The area on the left contains snow and ice accumulated on top of the stone. The area on the right represents a snow filled path below the outcrop. Most of this will be done using negative drawing, just as I would draw it if I were using pencil and paper. The white background is serving the same purpose as the white of the paper serves. I’ll post again as soon as I have enough progress.

As always, please feel free to comment or to ask any questions you may have.

I’ve started on the snow and ice. I worked on the area on the left which is the area that contains snow and ice accumulated on top of the stone. The white of the background is serving as the white of the snow, the same way that the white of the paper would if I were drawing with pencil and paper.

I’m using the same brushes as I did for the stone. That is, my LS Pencil Brush which is my own graphite brush. The ones that come closest to it in Procreate are the Scopus and the Waratah pencil brushes. You can use these if you want to follow along with me. The eraser and smudge tools are set to the Soft Airbrush, in the Airbrushing category of the Classic Library. The grey shade I’m using is still hexadecimal 46464. I grouped the layers for the stone and for the snow separately. It just makes it a little more organized. Here is a screenshot of my layers. I’m only using two layers for the snow and ice. Here’s another screenshot. This is all negative drawing. As I draw the shadows, the snow takes shape. I just have to keep in mind the direction of the light. It’s a question of slowly building up values. I need to continue to refine the snow and ice in this area.