Summary.

As well as learning to be an artist then specializing in creating original wildlife art, there are various other options for creating or choosing your own wildlife art. For the last few years, affordable Giclee printing has been available, offering genuinely museum-quality prints from photographs (your own, or other people's) or from existing original artworks, however there are limitations (see below).

Becoming a wildlife artist

To become a wildlife artist, it is very strongly advised that one must first become a proficient general artist, getting a thorough and wide grounding in all the basics of being an artist before specializing in the subject of wildlife. Few people achieve this on a self-taught basis, so finding the very best art teachers is one of the most important criteria. While a lot can be learned from books and other media, face-to-face teaching is far better as a good art teacher can give precise feedback to the student, second by second.

I am often asked which art books I most recommend for someone wanting to learn to be an artist. If there is ONE book I recommend most, it has to be "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain" by Betty Edwards. The original version was one of the most valuable books for my own art studies, and there is now a new version which looks even better. Click here to see more details of various versions of this book from Amazon.com . . . the original version is available used from only twenty cents (at the time of writing).

Tips for wildife photographers.

A good grounding in general photography, and general art, is most helpful in becomming a wildlife photographer. Currently, a lot of photographers are using digital cameras, but do keep in mind that the resolution from an ordinary 35mm film is far greater than that from most commonly available digital cameras. That is expected to change in the next few years, as digital camera technology continues to improve . . . there are already digital SLR cameras which can capture 60Mb images, which is similar to that from a 35mm film, but currently these are extremely expensive.

For most wildlife photography, zoom and/or telephoto lenses are essential, as the subjects are often far away. Bear in mind when buying a camera, that lenses usually make more difference to the finished results than the camera, so buying better quality lenses and a cheaper camera is usually best. For a great guide to buying a digital SLR camera, see www.slr-digital-camera.net which has the best D-SLR camera comparison chart on the net, and lots of great advise on how to choose the best camera for your purposes.

Painting wildlife.

The best paintings are done from real life . . . painting only from photographs is a very poor substitute. Yet painting wildlife in nature is extremely difficult due to the rarity of wildlife sightings, and the fact that animals and birds rarely stay still for long. Photography as reference for wildlife paintings is an invaluable resource if used alongside sketches made in the field.

Wildlife artist David Stribbling provides a CD of reference photos for wildlife art including photos from his 25 years of African wildlife art experience . . . the photos are royalty free, and could be valuable additional material for a wildlife artist, but of course, no substitute for first-hand experience in the field.

Printing your own wildlife art from photographs or existing artwork.

The existence of affordable giclee printing has revolutionized the art business. Only a few decades ago almost all of the art in high-street art shops across the developed world was originals, where as now most of the art offered is limited-edition Giclee prints, with originals being relatively rare.

Giclee prints are the very best prints available today, using cutting-edge technology to produce a superb-quality print as used by museum archives etc. The quality of the giclee print rivals traditional silver-halide and gelatin printing processes and is commonly used in museums, fine art galleries, and professional photographic galleries who require the very best in quality.

Giclee printing has many advantages over other printmaking methods. The resolution (DPI or dots per inch) is actually higher than traditional lithography which results in crisp contrast with rich, intense color. Life-span estimates of wide-gamut pigment ink Giclees by third-party testing indicate over 150 years with no noticeable fade. The range, or "gamut" of color for giclees is far beyond that of either traditional lithographic prints or other common printing processes (with a far wider range and quality of colors than consumer inkjet printers), and details are crisper.

While reasonable results are available from contemporary consumer scanners and ink-jet printers, the results are still very far short of what is available using top-of-the-range commercial scanners (costing more than 60,000 US Dollars each) and genuine Giclee printers.

One of the most important limitations in obtaining professional results with a Giclee print from a photograph, is the resolution of the original photograph. If the original you want to print is a painting or drawing (or original print such as silkscreen or etching) then you need to take the original to be scanned by a professional Giclee printer. This service is available for reasonable cost. However, if the original is a photograph, it may have inherent resolution limitations.

Digital photography is common now, but most people don't realize the resolution limitations currently inherent in this medium. Most Giclee printers will refuse to print anything at less than 300dpi (dots per inch), to keep the quality professional. That means that a digital photograph, taken on the top-of-the-range cameras available currently, at 10Mb, can only be printed up to a size of 7.6 by 5 inches, which is hardly acceptable for most uses. Even a standard 35mm film, only results in a print size of about 8 by 12 inches. To obtain a full professional Giclee print any larger than that size, a large format camera is essential.

Another option is to obtain your own Giclee print from an existing wildlife photograph. There are now many stock photo libraries, including large numbers of excellent wildlife art photographs, many available at high resolution. One can purchase the rights to print any of these, from the photo libraries in question. To see some of the available wildlife (74,000 photos) art photographs from one of the best known online photo libraries (www.fotosearch.com), click here.

Alternatively, companies such as http://www.imagekind.com allow photographers and artists to sell their artwork directly to the public as (unlimited edition) giclee prints, and such companies offer a wide range of wildlife subjects, with professionally made Giclee prints (framed or unframed) immediately available.

For easier and lower cost options, companies such as Zazzle.com and CafePress.com offer very easy-to-use "print on demand" services for printing posters, postcards, greetings cards, T-shirts and a wide variety of other products from your own images (such as wildlife art or photography), with no set-up costs.

Finished Giclee prints can be mounted, and/or framed as desired.

Resources on this site :-

Article (illustrated) :- Wildlife trip to see tigers in Ranthambore, India.