Mural Mosaic--The initial sketch

The picture starts to take shape. I chose the American badger (Taxidea taxus), as two subspecies (jeffersonii and jacksoni) are endangered in Canada. And of course, because I needed something stripey to match the panel.

I started by doing some digital sketches on top of the scanned panel to work out the composition. Once I had an image that preserved the important features of the panel, I roughed out the badger's features and colours in gouache.

Next: refining the badger and painting the background.