Beth Bale "Serval" 1-5-13

“Serval”

Beth Bale

Acrylic 20 x 16” Framed

$270

Servals are much smaller wild cats than tigers and I think they have several at the Carolina Tiger Rescue. This is an acrylic painting on canvas.  FYI, CTR gave me written and legal permission to paint these from their own photos because I had a display of art up in their gift shop for 3 months and they wanted some paintings of their own animals.  They are usually very proprietary with their images, by whomever may take them, and I feel very privileged to have gotten to do these paintings.

I have been asked why I chose acrylic when I usually paint in watercolor.  All I can say is that I find myself reaching for my acrylics paints many times when I know I am planning to do a highly realistic, representational painting of an animal with fur.  It seems so easy in acrylic compared to watercolor.  I tend to do a number of layers of thin paint in acrylic, starting with a very thin wash of almost complementary colors to what I plan to put over it.  The details, some individual pieces of fur, foreground, etc. go in at the very end with a smaller brush than I use for most of the painting.  And you see the final result.  I am constantly reminding myself to stop sooner rather than later in my paintings.  It is easy to overdo a painting and paint the life right out of it, so to speak.  Sometimes less is more and just the suggestion of a thing is enough to get the viewer's eye to see what you want them to see.  Hope you enjoy viewing the paintings.                                           ~ Beth Bale

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