I’m expanding my repertoire of critters. The lion who served as the model for this painting lives at a zoo in Pennsylvania. He is a stunning, handsome creature and I hope I captured some of his essence. This is an excerpt of his head. See the full painting at my online gallery.
You can see I used quite a lot of paint, especially to create the thick mane. In person, the knife strokes sit up off the canvas and look a bit like bead work the way they reflect the light. This guy had a dense black band of fur, which really set off his face and gave him an imposing presence. It would boring to use tans and browns–and not really my style. I used a lot of purples, oranges and greens, especially to mix the dark areas.
I’ve been experimenting with painted borders on some of my recent paintings. Usually they are black, sometimes just on the right and left sides. For this painting, I used the orange in the painting for the outside border–the complement of the purple from the inner background–to create a bit of tension and energy.