Are you ready for this?! ONE MORE TIME, I will show off my newest masterpiece. Man-o-man. 3 hours to scan, my computer kept misbehaving so I called Dell for more virtual memory. (That’s right, another gig of VM just for the lion!) Then I had to reduce my scans by 50% just so my programs wouldn’t crash out on me. More memory will arrive tomorrow, then I can piece the original full size scans together and it will be large enough for a near-full-size print.

I thoroughly enjoyed painting this guy, and hope many more people consider custom wildlife paintings. It gives me a great opportunity to broaden my gallery and get to the zoo for some photography sessions!

Click “read more” for all of the detail images. There are plenty, and they rock! (Toot, toot, toot – it’s so unlike me, but this piece does deserve it!)

Lion
16×20 Oil Painting
Gallerywrap Canvas
© 2005 Leanne Wildermuth
All Rights Reserved

So far this morning I’ve varnished my Lion painting (you will see scan details soon!), done a load of laundry, made scrambled eggs for Chickiemonkey and sunnyside-uppers for Caitibug, loaded and started the dishwasher, took out the trash and Swiffered the floors. Then, since I had 5 minutes left before the Bug took off for school, I decided I had plenty of time to work up the background on Rusty! An hour later…

I’ve sketched out my next painting, meet Rusty! He’s a sweet cocker spaniel who enjoys lying on the couch and knits his own cozy winter sweaters in his free time. I’ll be painting his roomie when his portrait is finished, you’ll see her next week. Rusty is on a 12×12 gallery wrapped canvas; can you guess what his background color will be?

I’ll paint his background tomorrow morning and while that’s drying I can get everything else scanned, packed & shipped.

Here he is, furry paws and all that jazz! I love him. I’m going to scan him when he’s dry (before I ship tomorrow) and show you some detail shots, and trust me I’m scanning big enough to make prints of this bad boy.

A side shot here for you, I chose a nice deep olive for the sides of this whoppin 1-1/2″ deep canvas. It looks awesome!

Now I’ve completed his face and mane, and need to work on the rock to the right, his paws and the foreground mulch. I’m going to stop for the day, The Man will be headed to work tomorrow (first official day back) so I’d like to cozy up to my favorite lump for a little while. 😀

This one may roll into tomorrow, we’ll see how much farther I can get today on him. You can scroll up & down from the last work in progress shot to this one and see there’s a huge difference in his mane & face! I’ve enhanced his eyes, nose, you can see that “panting” look now. I’ve still got lots to do!

I’ve got a few things finished here, so I thought I’d share the work in progress as I finish him up today. Basically, I’m working from the top left corner across to the right, just like us righties who write the right way, write.

😉

The tree, background muddled leaves, grasses and log to the left are finished. I’m working on his right ear and mane in that area, then I’ll move over the center of him, work his mane and enhance his eyes, and you get the picture. I’ve got the webcam on if you want to stop in and see it live!

Help! I lost Saturday. I woke up and was certain it was Saturday, and not 5 minutes later it was midnight. Dangit I hate it when that happens!!

Well, one thing happened yesterday that I really needed to have happen. The Catfish was carried out of my studio and drove away carefully tucked into a sleeping bag. With the fishy smell lingering in my studio, and the temps down to the low 40’s, you can imagine how motivating it is to open the windows and paint like I’ve been craving! Now that he’s gone I’ve sighed my huge sigh of relief and can officially wash my hands with some really strong deoderizing soap. ha!

My schedule has me shipping this Lion tomorrow (absolutely no later than Tuesday) so guess what? With my underpainting dry and ready for it’s final coat, the studio clear of large obstructive fiberglass creatures, I am going to paint with the stereo up very loud for an insanely long time today. So there! I’ll update the cam status when I turn the cam on.

Eye candy today, our pretty Cardinal. I took this pic the other day (he was eating with the Blue Jay).

Whooowie kitty! Wow. What a pretty boy he’s turning out to be! You likey? Me likey very much. This is the underpainting. Nowhere near finished, really. I have an additional layer of paint to go!

In other news, I go pick up two new pair o’ specs in about an hour. I have extremely light sensitive eyes so I had to get a pair of Rx shades, too. Bah. Did you know that transitions lenses don’t work when you get in the car? You still need clipons. Windshields. UV protected. No transition happenin’ there. It was cheaper to just get two pair, isn’t that silly?? I thought so too. Thank you for nodding, I could see you agreeing from here. It makes me feel better, since I’m a little dim. Mark’s getting bifocals! Baaahahaaaa! That makes him sound old, doesn’t it? He really isn’t. That. Old. (Smoochies to the old man.)

😉