L2 Painting

Term 1 week 5

The topic that i wan to focus this year will be animal captivity or animal rights. To be specific, my theme this year will revolve around circus animal. The message that I will try to show or deliver will be that animals are not meant to be used for the circus. They are not toys or performers that you teach tricks or something, they are not meant to be trained. As of now, I think that my main subject for my board will be a tiger. Here are some ideas around this topic/theme

• realistic
• Oil paints (so that i can work on the layers a bit longer)
• Acrylic
• Watercolour
• Bears,Lions and tigers in circus
• Circus tricks (e.g fire ring?) 
• Dark/Gore
• Colour palette - neutral colours

The artist models that does artworks related to this topic are:

• Marcel Witte
• Dana Ellyn
• Marcin Budzinski

GRACIOUS - 2010 

“Gracious” a painting done by a dutch artist named Marcel Witte. The intention of this painting is to show a powerful lion is. Marcel witte is a visual storyteller. He uses large canvases, such as walls to express a powerful message. Generally, his artworks includes life size animals. He made this artwork in 2010. The medium that he used is oil paint. The way he chose his paint colour is very neutral and realistic. The technique that he did to make this artwork is by layering the paints. He did this by slowly building up the paint. In the video linked, We can tell that this painting took a lot from his time. He used a black or possibly burnt umber base for the animals, he did this to make the colours pop or to be true to its’ colour. I also think that the reason he used this as a base colour is to make the colour not so vibrant and to kinda make it dull in a way.
Personally, It takes me a long time to finish a painting, because I enjoy blending and layering every paint. When it comes to layering paints and blending it, I think that realistic painting is one of the style that will suit it. So painting realistically will be something I would want to try and learn. Overall, the way that he paints this is something I will look into, to incorporate into my paintings in the near future. Also, the way that he painted the furs one by one makes the artwork itself comes to life. This is also another technique that I would like to learn to make my artworks more effective. He also layered it by using different tones.

So here's a few of Marcel's other works on realistic animals closeup and to be able to see the strokes of the furs, which is important for me to look into.