Painting a young lion in gouache
When I paint animals I look for the underlying colours. Fur is very complex and varies according to the age of the animal and the environmental conditions at the time. This painting was done from a photo taken in Africa by a friend of mine who was very generous in allowing me to use it.
Step 1. I sketched the cub and masked in the parts I wanted clean. Then I used washes of spectrum violet and burnt sienna.
Step 2. I selected the darks and key underlying colours. Burnt umber, tangerine and yellow ochre.
step 4. I continued with flesh tint, warm grey 3 and 1, and permanent white.
Completed. The method I used was single strokes over the top of other colours. Not much water is used. The eyes are a mixture of yellow green, primrose and red.
