snuggle bears

oil on 22x26 canvas panel. aside from my main subject i wanted to show a bit of the cold and vast landscape of the polar bear's habitat in the arctic region.

i start by painting the clear blue sky background with one inch craft bristle brush. i noticed that i often find myself using this type of brush when i'm doing my backgrounds. i think this maybe my favorite brush to use in that area. :)

next i got to play around with some modeling paste for the snow's ground texture. i used the modeling paste to build up textured surfaces with this technique i achieved my soft chunky snow look. after this i proceeded working on the cub's face and did a bit of color testing in this area.

with all my colors figured out the rest of the bear's fur was easier to make. since i have a different way of painting fur i think i should start labeling my paintings as done in semi-pointillism style. up close it looks like a bunch of blurred dots but viewed from a far its rough outdoor fur. it has come to my attention that due to my different style in painting some people might think that the photo of my painting is grainy.

here's a look at the finished painting. :)

sos lynx

oil on 18x24 canvas panel. a campaign support piece i made to promote awareness on the critically endangered lynx and the sos lynx conservation in portugal. the original plan for this painting was to make it on a 22x26 panel but at the last second i changed my mind thinking that a large portrait style of an iberian lynx is too much. at that time i was thinking that large canvases would be much better if it was filled with at least 40% background scenery. this lynx project of mine has approximately 20% of the background showing so a smaller and narrow vertical canvas would be a better choice.

using the same ivory black paint from the "watching you" painting i start by blocking in the dark parts of the lynx. its a little funny when i do this part because with all the pencil details i make. it sometimes gets confusing on where to put in the dark blocks and more that one occasion getting frustrated at myself because i forgot what some of the pencil markings meant. but usually after figuring this part out its so much easier to fill in the rest of the colors.

painting the background first before the subject just to get out of my routine of starting a painting with the eyes. in the background i tried to create the impression of a sunny close up grassland. i didnt put in much detail here to balance the painting out because the lynx was already heavily detailed.

doing the color test starting with the mommy lynx's ear then going down and across the head. i used lots of mixes between lemon yellow, naples yellow hue, raw sienna, raw umber, payne's gray and titanium white. there are also some blue hued glazing in some parts.

painting the lynx cub's tongue and eyes last. this painting took thrice the time for me to finish. this probably is the longest time it took me to make a painting. there were lots of distractions and other prior commitments hopefully the next one will be a smooth sailing one.

siberian tiger

curious kitty..

oil on artist canvas panel. 22" x 26". i didn't paint until the edges of the canvas for my own peace of mind. This way, if i handle the canvas, i can hold it at the edges without worrying about embedding my finger print on the semi dry oil paint which will drive me crazy in trying to retouch (speaking from experience from the koi-chan painting). I also didn’t clean up the boarder for effect purposes. Besides, when I frame this the un-painted part will be over layed with an extender anyway.

the tiger is a female seberian that's why she's a bit smaller (average 7-feet-11-inches to 9-feet long and weigh 221 to 368 pounds) than the usual tiger pictures. siberian tigers usually have coarse fur during winter time, i hope it's slightly depicted on my painting.

i start with painting all the black parts in the painting. this way when i put in the flesh tone color of wash i can still see the details of my blacks. after this i worked in detail on the head.

when i'm satisfied with the outcome of the head i go to the body. starting with the tiger's left front arm drawing right to left because i'm left handed and to avoid any semi dry paint smudging.

next comes the background. i had a bit of trouble depicting the stone-like texture of the wall but in the end i just used sponges to bring it out.

finally finished =^_^=