Out of Africa

While on safari we came across a group of lions with a magnificent male. We managed to get pretty close and, with the zoom lens, I got a great photo of him looking at us. Always wanted to do this picture - now I have.

Male Lion
(Acrylic ink on half imperial Bockingford watercolour paper)

This was quite scary. Not done an animal before and, with his shaggy mane, the early stages looked like I'd just gone completely mad with the ink. But luckily, after removing the masking fluid and getting detail into the eyes, he started to emerge from the paper.

I often find this. The technique means going mad with the ink and, depending on the preparatory work done before, it either works really well or it has to be thrown away! I thought this was in the latter category initially - just shows that one should persevere as you never know what might happen.