Wild Life Drawing Online: Snow Leopards

There are few animals more elusive, or more stunning than snow leopards. These incredible apex predators evolved to dominate the snowy mountains across northern Asia. Their beautifully thick coats provide warmth and camouflage, their huge paws are perfect for snowy sauntering, and their long, fluffy tails can even be wrapped around their bodies and faces like scarves! 

Across their habitat, issues like mining and poaching have caused an estimated population decline of 20% in these gorgeous animals. But there are brilliant people working to conserve snow leopards across their range. Our special guest for this class is Emily Marnham, Grants Officer at People's Trust for Endangered Species (PTES) who manages their grants programme, which includes a snow leopard project they have been supporting for 13 years.  The project is run by the Snow Leopard Conservation Foundation and is based in the Tost Mountains in Mongolia, which are now a protected nature reserve. This means the area is no longer mined, and community rangers survey the area to monitor for illegal poaching and mining. This has resulted in the snow leopard population in the area now being considered stable.  

We will be drawing from some gorgeous reference images of some of the snow leopards of the Tost Mountains, including one particularly cool cat that the team refer to as The Dude. We will also hear first-hand accounts from the team on the ground in Mongolia about their experiences working with these magnificent animals, via video recordings. (They would love to tune in live, but the time difference doesn’t allow for that!). 

The class will be led by artist Jennie Webber, whose friendly and inclusive approach to teaching will suit all, from absolute beginners to seasoned pros. The class will be relaxed and informal, and there will be plenty of time for questions. We will record the session and send it out to all ticket holders afterwards, so you can rewatch/ catch up as you please. 

50% of profits will be donated to PTES to support the Snow Leopard Project.