Snow Monkey

by Daniel Mackie September 25, 2012

Snow Monkey watercolour painting in progress by Daniel Mackie
You may Have seen these little chaps on television wildlife documentaries, these are the monkey’s that lounge around in hot tubs all day long! Mind you, the snow monkey lives in areas where snow covers the ground for months each year, so wouldn’t you do the same!

They live in Japan, in the Mountains. The Japanese Macaque (to give it it’s proper name) is the most northern living of all the primate’s apart from humans. In the Jigokudani Monkey Park, the Macaques are notable for visiting the hot springs in the winter to warm up.
The Macaques are very human like, and that is probably why the capture our imagination. Their social behaviour can be very playful and fun, for instance they roll snowballs and have snowball fights!

This watercolour as you can see is in progress. I have used masking fluid to outline the fur and the snowdrops, then put a wash of cerulean blue, burnt sienna and paynes grey over the background area, that way the snow and the monkeys fur will stand out white.
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