Bronze lion, Trafalgar Square, London

I am fortunate enough to work within a brisk ten-minute walk of London’s Trafalgar Square and today’s sunshine drew me out (forgive the pun) into the madding crowd. I had been invited to the pub, but now at least I have a new piece of art to talk about. (I’ll do the pub tomorrow). Painted ‘alla prima’, i.e executed on the spot, with no drawing construct or underpainting involved and started and finished while wet, in one session. Instead of using a pencil to sketch out the image first, I use a watery mix of the blue, which is easy to build over later or ignore if not quite in the right place. After all, I only usually have around half hour out of my lunchbreak by the time I set up and allow for a return journey, so I have happily reduced the stages of constructing required for these sessions. Speaking of simplicity, I also used only a swordliner brush (size 9), perfect for both fine detail (not really my style) and broad strokes. The drier strokes on the rough Khadi paper around the lion‘s mane aptly reflected the texture of the bronze carving in the sunlight. Painted in blue Quink Ink on 210gsm rough Khadi (Indian) paper (sketchbook).