Zebra:

NATURAL HISTORY NOTE: There are three species of zebra in Africa : Burchell's (also called Plains, or Common), Grevy's, and Mountain. Burchell's and Mountain both have subspecies. The main Burchell's subspecies are the Grant's (also called Boehm) - which is found in East Africa and the Chapman which is found in Southern Africa. The Grant's tends to be boldly striped black and white with wide spaces separating the stripes and stripes all the way down the legs.

The Chapman is the zebra that is going to be depicted in this painting. The Chapman tends to be more beigey than bright white - and some - such as the middle zebra in this painting - can be very brown. The Chapman usually also has very distinct "shadow" stripes between the main stripes. The Chapman usually does not have any or only very light stripes on the legs.

The photographs Jan is working from for this painting were taken at Etosha National park in Namibia.

Jan in Kenya photographing Burchell's zebra.

Here is the drawing done on tracing paper that will be transferred to the painting surface. The painting will be 11 x 14". To the left you can see some of the reference photos Jan is working from.

Jan paints zebra's totally different than any other animal. She does not do the usual dark brown underpainting, rather she leaves the neutral gray of the gesso (the ground that is painted onto the masonite to prepare it for painting). In this photo she has masked out the three zebras and the foreground rocks with an artist masking fluid and cellophane.

Jan has done the far background and started on the water. She has also removed the masking materials.

Our computer crashed, and so unfortunately the rest of the steps in the painting of the zebra were lost. Here is the finished painting. It is titled "SHADOWS AND STRIPES" and is going in the corporate collection of Don and Penny Schmidt of DORADO EXPLORATION.