The leopard is done, I spent maybe fifteen minutes on that eye, and fifteen hours on the surrounding fur. But another thing I did was put the eye in first and then work outward from it, so maybe that is a factor.
And this is the beginning of probably the last big cat. In the previous lion I got lost in all that hair, so for this one I am going to separate it into distinct segments. Also since I like the way the previous painting turned out I am going to start with the ear and work outward from that.
Nothing is nailed down right now, but very likely I will have my Ten Cat show before it gets cold: Big Cats, Alleys, and Some Girls.
So you’re doing a show at TenCat with 8 cats? C’mon, you can do better. However with the other two series, that’s a lot of paintings in those windows...the leopard looks great, almost photographic! And the lion is off to a great start. Working with that much yellow would drive me crazy. It does not play well with other colors, imo. What yellows are you using?
ReplyDeleteI really like the leopard alot. Considering that you were looking at this as an abstraction, it's probably the most realistic painting you've ever done. I'm thinking the lion is going to be stellar, too.
ReplyDeleteMaybe it's too soon to end the series...I have to agree with Sara. Ten Cats at Ten Cat—seems obvious, right?
Gotta agree, All cats all the time. You know, a series is a series. Not a series with a couple others thrown in.
ReplyDeleteYeah, the leopard is both more realistic and more abstract at the same time. Hearkens back to the big cat eyes.
It seems to be that you've done the grid on the photo and the sketch similarly and then changed the proportions completely on the watercolor. Is that on purpose? If so, why? It's like the ear is gigantic compared to a squished up nose and teeny eye...
Sara, my yellows are golden green, burnt yellow, raw sienna, lemon yellow, and q gold. I would like to add yellow ocher to the mix, but I just can't find a role for it.
ReplyDeletePat, the sketch is just of the middle part of the photo, well middle and a bit towards the top, Scale seems to make a difference so rather than work on the whole photo on smaller paper I use it to paint what I think of as the most important part of the painting at the same scale I will be using on the final. Lions do have teeny eyes in comparison to their massive majestic heads.
Yeah, I get that your moving in for his close-up, but it still looks like the proportions are off to me. Especially if you click on the image to enlarge it. Unless you're cutting of a huge portion of the nose, there's a lot more distance(3 X)from the eye to the end of the nose than there is(2 X)from the eye to the start of the ear. And the ear in general seems way larger in scale. Whatever. Your sketch of the lion is great, by the way.
DeleteIt's a sketch.
DeleteI was really curious about whether you'd keep the flecks of white paper showing through in the leopard, but didn't want to say anything until you'd finished. I think the white enhances the fur and also adds to the dimensional feeling. But the real star is that incredible eye! I always lean back away from it when I first glimmpse it on screen.
ReplyDeleteLooking forward to seeing a show at Ten Cat again. That's when we'll know things have opened up to almost normal.