Aslan – the Lion of Judah

Inspired by C.S. Lewis’s wonderful Narnia books I wanted a picture of Aslan for my bedroom.  I’d been thinking of painting this for years and had a canvas all ready with the background paint on and a pencil sketch lightly over that.  Although my flat is not sorted out yet, I really wanted to paint again so, over the course of a few days as my pain is not great at the moment, I gave it a go.

 

First I sketched over my pencil marks witha sketch in paint  and then began to flesh out the design.

I was thinking of using the colours for C3PO and R2D2 but it didn’t look right – the blue was too cold.

So I switched to entirely warm colours…

 

I gradually went over all the blue using yellows, browns and blacks.

 

 

When I added a darker brown I used a lot of red in it to warm the picture even further.  This is the finished picture…

 

 

In terms of design it’s a  bit of a departure for me – being more abstract than realistic. In a way it’s a mixtiure of the two styles I’ve worked on previously – realistic painting and contemporary abstract acrylic.  The base coat of paint for this painting was acrylic and I used gouache over the top.

 

This is the very first time when painting that I’ve really relaxed and found a freedom to just paint and see what happens.  I think it’s because it was on this old canvas which was I thinking of throwing out so I wasn’t worried about the cost of failing.  It was super to paint again.  I have really missed it.

Common Land

I am settling in to my new home quite well now.  There is still quite a bit of work to do on the kitchen and some to do in the living room but every day I feel more at home.  One of the lovliest things about my new place is that it is two minutes walk from Latton Common.  In England we have common land in some places where traditionally you can graze animals and more recently people tend to walk dogs.    The common nearest to me is a beautiful wildish place with horses grazing on it.

 

 

I just can’t believe how lucky I am to have this wonderful place so close.  I’ve been taking my dog over there since we arrived and the colours change subtley throughout the day.  Spring is on the way here now so I expect that things will begin to change even more in the next few weeks.

I’ve been thinking again and again about getting back to the art.  Realistically I have to get my home sorted out first but I think as soon as the art cupboard is properly unpacked it will be opened and used again!