Lion Tutorial

This is a basic tutorial on how to paint a lion on white fabric.  You will need burnt umber, yellow ochre, sienna brown, black and white.

This technique can be used on almost any surface.  If you are painting on a t-shirt be sure to prepare it properly.  Stretch the shirt over a board so it is pulled tight.  T-shirts usually have a layer of fuzz on them which can muddy the painting and prevent the paint from spraying the way you want it to.  To get around this, Mix some clear base extender with about 50% water and mist it onto the surface to be painted then put it in your heat press.  This will flatten the fuzz on the shirt.  If you don't have a heat-press, you can use a sheet of Teflon paper and an iron.

Sketch your design onto the fabric as lightly as possible.

We will start with burnt umber.  Start by painting the fur texture. Make sure you study your reference material carefully.  The fur is of varying lengths and flows in different directions depending which part of the lion you are looking at.  It is important to get this right.  Proper direction of the fur adds energy and volume to your work. As you work you can start painting in some shadows to build volume.  Go light at first as it is much easier to darken a painting than it is to lighten it.  Step back often to see how you are doing.  When you feel you have the right combination of texture and shading, move onto the next step.

Once you have completed the first step, your painting will look something like this.  Spray the whole painting with a light mist of burnt umber.  Be careful not to go dark with this.

We will now use yellow ochre.  Yellow ochre is a beautiful colour.  Along with red ochre it is one of the first pigments used by human beings thousands of years ago.  Be careful with its use.  It is a very rich colour and it is easy to go over the top with it.  You can mix the paint with some clear base extender to reduce the intensity.

The yellow ochre is used to give the lion his golden colour.  Go over the entire lion.  You will need to make sure that the shadows are painted over enough so that they are more on the yellow side.  Cover up most of the burnt umber.  Go light on the light areas of the mane and the muzzle.

Now for the sienna brown.  This helps build form between the dark shadow areas and the lighter golden areas.  Paint over the shadows with the sienna brown and transition it to the golden areas.  In addition to going over the shadows, use the sienna to further build the form of the lion.  Notice here how it is used to give shape to the eyes and the paw.

You're almost done.  We now move on to the finishing touches with black and white. 

Use black to darken the shadow areas around the nose, mouth and eyes.  Make sure you just darken the underlying colours, don't cover them in black.

Now for the white.  Consider it light in a bottle.  White paint reflects more light than the other colours, so in addition to the white fur on the chin it is ideal for highlights.  Use white paint to add some more fur texture to the lightest areas around the nose, eyes and mane.  Take notice of where white has been added on the foot and on the folds running down from the eye.  When you are done that, use white to thicken the fur on the chin.  The last thin to do is the whiskers.

You can use this technique for several different paintings.  Change colours or change subject matter.  The important thing is to enjoy yourself and keep painting!