Gorilla Wildlife Painting in Progress

This is my first wildlife painting – gorilla. I started it with a pencil sketch a while ago and didn’t return to it until today. It’s a fantastic pose for this monumental beast. He (I presume it is he) looks so majestic and powerful I had to put him down on canvas. I am using acrylic paints for this. This is the first step – a pencil sketch. I made sure to spend a bit of time on the sketch as I wanted to get the proportions right. The next step is a thin wash that I will apply throughout the canvas to block off shadows and highlights.