Introducing Mr Lion

Hi All :)  I did indeed finish the lion today.  It took more painting sessions than I thought and even today it took longer than I thought it might.  But who's counting ?!  

I spent most of my time today working on the background.  The stone bricks needed to be suitably stained and marked up.  I worked to add some of the pattern to the shadowed areas, under the arches.  I also painted in to the lines and borders, in mid tones and also some shadows...and in a few places some highlights.

Here is a closeup of the lion's body, to the right.  It shows some of the marks and patterns I had to paint to make up the textured part of his mid back and flank.  Also, at the bottom, (ribcage area I suppose ?), there are marks where his verdigris finish ends and he is just bronzed.  You can also see the work on the front of his mane and shoulder too.

And below left is a close up of his face and the background behind his head.  He has a rather majestic expression.  After finishing painting, I put up one of the easels in the lounge/living room and put him up in there...Wow, did he ever fill the room !  A very nice presence.  He looks rather good in there I think.  I was going to have him there this evening, but decided to get stuck right into tidying up the sides of the painting (black-brown).  I have done that, signed it, and just am waiting or the sides to be dry.  Then I can glaze the lion with a nice oil glaze, which will enhance the finish and give it a nice finished look.

So what should I name him ?  And what should I call the painting ??  Questions, questions....

See you next post.  Either starting on second lion, doing the next series of encaustics, or picking up one of the other projects I have on the go in the studio....Stay tuned, hope you will check back in and see what I pick up next !

Prep for a new series (and sneak preview of lion)

Hi There  !  Another Saturday here in Sydney, bright sunshine, but a tad chilly as the light faded and it became dark.  Soon it will be our shortest day of the year, so the days are not so long right now.

In between work on the verdigris lion, I have been getting a set of art boards ready to do my next series of encaustics painting.  I will work on two to three dozen paintings in the next run.  I am making the art boards myself, out of MDF and attaching timber

 backframing of pine or maple (or sometimes tassie oak).  The timber is not so important, as the three sorts all cost about the same.  Ian has made up a "jig" in his workshop and cuts the pieces to size and I attach them with a high quality woodworkers PVAplus glue.  Attaching the back frames is a fiddly job.  But as a task, it is a bit mindless and a good break from the lion--I can study him while I am working on attaching the frames.

Above right you can see a pile of art boards with timber backframes attached.  The art boards I am making are 10 x 10 cm, 20 x 20 cm and 10 x 30 cm sized.   In front of the small artboards in the photo are several half kilo blocks of beeswax.  I will be melting these down  for my painting and will add oil paint for pigment and then also some splashes of resin (damar varnish and also pure gum turps) to help it harden up to a nice finish.  

At left is a small set of encaustics paintings I painted last November.  They were just sitting on a table, looking nice and wanting a better purpose for their existence.  So, I have now attached them to a single set of backframing, the three 8 x 8 cm paintings are now joined together in the back by timber and make a nice little artwork of 8 x 24 cm size.  I like how they look together.  The middle one had a background that did not "go" so well with the top and bottom ones, so I put a fab deep blue green turquoise color oil paint on the middle one and have rubbed it back to expose the white feather design.  I am happy with how it looks as a collection now.   I am dubbing this Feather Study. 

I have not yet decided what I am going to paint in the new series !  I have another day to contemplate this, as I did not finish the lion today, so will be working on him again tomorrow.  Very close on him...most of the lion is done, but then I was working on the background and it took longer than I thought.  It is looking better though, big improvement on its previous look.  There is some clean up to do of a few parts of the background, before I can declare the painting complete.  This is so typical at this stage.  So much for thinking this painting would be done today !  Perhaps tomorrow then ?!

Just in case you wonder how the lion has progressed today....ok, ok, here he is.   Does he look almost or nearly done yet ?  Stay tuned for next post--I just have to get Mr Lion done and ready to glaze !

End of Session #5--Lion Almost Done

Hello All, It is Tuesday and today was a "split" schedule, with work in the morning and then again in the evening.  I was working remotely and had time for a short painting stint in between the parts of the work day.  Plus the clouds broke up and I got some really good quality bright sunshine, which was outstanding for the detail work I am doing now.

This first photo you see is the lion at end of Session #4, which was Sunday.  After the post of Saturday below, I did a fair bit more work on the lion, doing some detail work on his face, as promised.  One thing I did was to adjust the shadow falling across his chin, which had been really bothering me.   I also working on his left leg and flank.  Though I had originally thought I might finish  in five painting sessions, at the end of Sunday afternoon, I realised he would probably need 6 plus one extra for glazing.    There were still issues I needed to work on.  More shadows on his muzzle.  A slightly

straighter line to the bridge of his nose, more work on his craggy shadows in his mane around his face, and more attention to the highlights, where the sun is hitting him.  

On the right you see the palette I set up and worked with today, Session #5.  I only had an hour and a half to paint, plus a bit of set up time.  However, given I am working on primarily the Lion at the moment, I had all my acrylic paints in the colors I am using already on the table you see (the palette is sitting atop them there).  You see also my jars of water and paint brushes.  And a cup of coffee, which just seemed like a good thing to have to get me moving in the right direction.  Ian (hubby) has been working midnight shifts again this week and was still asleep, so I could not have loud music on the stereo...so I had my ipod instead.   World music playlist today :)

When I work on the underpainting stages my palette is a big mess of everything all over.  But as I work towards the end of the painting, my paint gets more precise, with small blobs and spots of various shades I need for the work I am doing.  I work back and forth from one color to another as I need to, either working on a particular area of the painting, or perhaps with a particular shade or color and taking wherever it needs to be put.  There are dozens of repetitive steps working back and forth like this at this stage.  I also work hard not to mix the blobs of paint together too much and I am pretty careful with what goes where, as I fine tune the painting, checking my reference photo often.  

Because this work is close up and delicate at times, I have to step back and view the work from across the room at times, to see if it is coming together.  Sometimes I photograph the work, as it can help to see the painting in progress on the camera screen.   Later I will study the images on the computer screen and contemplate them again.

I spent a lot of time on the lion's face today.  I did all the things I said above that I would be working on.  Mostly I worked with a mix of paint and lots of gloss medium, especially for the darker colors I used as shadows.  I have built up some of the shadows in many layers using this sort of a "glazey" mix, which allows putting shadows on in veils over the verdigris colors that give a greater dimension and more subtle look.  His muzzle and front of his nose was too bright, so I added more soft verdigris tones.  The shadows on the left side of his face needed more light on them, because the sunlight is coming from that direction.  I added more light in various places where the sunlight falls on him too.  In all the shadow areas of his face and mane, I painted in more subtle tones, shadows and highlights in his mane and face.  His eyes got some emphasis (like eyeliner !), which gave them more definition and elegance.  Each shadowed area got more detail.  This all probably took an hour or more.  The rest of my time was working on his left flank and leg,  adding 

shadows in a glazey Payne's Grey or Raw Umber.  And white or nearly white where the light falls on his side and back.

Here is the lion at the end of Session #5.  He needs some fine tuning next painting session, then I will work on the final touches for the background too.  I feel like he is almost done now, and that is a big step from earlier today, when I saw many many things I wanted to do. I am happy with how his body is looking, only small adjustments to do there.  Maybe a few things to do on his face.  Some work on his mane, but very minor.  And his background.  Then when I glaze him, I may add some oil paint into the glaze to bring out more of the colors I want to see and where I want to add a "glow."

Check in again for the next post on the lion's progress, later this week.  I hope he will be done then !