The animals...

The animals keep coming out lately. This time it is gorillas. I recently finished a wolf.  What I learned from that picture is that fur is where it is at for me right now.  It presents a very different problem from skin or other textures. It plays right into my desire to "noodle" and fixate on details. All the while it MUST STILL DESCRIBE FORM. So here is my gorilla after one day. He measures 32x32 and is oil on linen.  yes, that is a gold leaf halo.

I have been painting all of my animals with roughly the same palette - Burnt Sienna, Yellow Ochre, Ivory Black, Titanium White, and glimpses of Cadmium Red where it counts. This gorilla will make 4 animal paintings for a show I've got coming up called "Beauties & Beasts"  where I will mix in a few of my portraits of women with the animals. The show is in a barber shop, so I have to watch what I put up...  i.e. no nudie pics or orgies.

I'm planning on adding another gorilla to this a well, more of a head study. I have an idea for gold leafing the eyes....