Wild Life Drawing Online: Scottish Wildcats

Take a walk on the wild side with us at a class focused on the UK’s last remaining felid- the Scottish Wildcat. These furry yet feisty felines arrived to our land some 9000 years ago via the ancient land bridge that once connected Britain to mainland Europe. Also known as Highland tigers, these cats have a sad history of persecution by humans, habitat loss, and, more recently, interbreeding (or hybridisation) with domestic cats, which has resulted in them being on the brink of extinction. They can now only be found in the Scottish Highlands, where their numbers are very low. 

Urgent action is required to help Scottish wildcats, which is why we are so thankful for the project we are working with on this class: Saving Wildcats. We will be joined by Helen Parsons from the partnership project, who will teach us all about this incredible species and the work that she and her colleagues are doing to conserve them, such as their breed and release programme, community outreach and their dedicated wildcat release centre in the Cairngorms. 

Our sketches will be focused on one of the charity’s release successes- a female wildcat named Lorne. Helena will share some fascinating footage from camera traps, which will give an insight into Lorne’s hunting style and her preferred habitat. Artist and illustrator Jennie Webber will be leading the drawing side of things and will provide her top tips for capturing Lorne’s striking, stripey features on your page.

The class is open to all abilities so whether you haven’t sketched since school or you draw on the daily, you’ll get loads out of the session. The basic materials you need to take part are some paper, a pencil, a sharpener and a rubber, but if you’d like to experiment with other materials please free to get creative! We will be drawing from reference images which will be emailed to you (along with instructions and the Zoom link) 48 hours before the event is due to start, or in good time if you book your ticket closer to the session. As with all our online sessions, we will send out a recording of the class afterwards so that you can watch it back as many times as you like.

50% of profits will be donated to Saving Wildcats.