Today I'm going to show you step by step instructions on how to paint a lion in the sunset. I'm starting a series of acrylic painting tutorials for free. I thought it would be a cool idea to start the series off with the "king of the jungle" by painting a lion in the sunset.
Lions are considered the king of the jungle which is misleading because they mainly live in the grasslands. They are called kings because they look and act like kings. Their long hairy manes resemble a crown a king would wear.
Lions are really amazing animals. The lion’s roar can be heard up to 5 miles away. The lionesses do much of the hunting in groups to capture larger prey. But the lion gets the first and largest share, just like a king. A lion can run as much as 50 MPH and can jump as far as 36 feet! African lions are on the verge of extinction with their population being between 30,000 - 100,000. In Asia they are listed as being an endangered species with an estimated population of only 350.
Supplies Needed To Paint A Lion In The Sunset
Stretched Canvas 8 X 10
Assorted Colors of Acrylic Paint - Blue, Red, Orange, Yellow, Purple, Brown, White and Black
Assorted Paint Brushes - #10 flat or above preferably, #3 Round, Less than or a #0 Round or Liner
Wet Palette - or any kind of palette or a paper plate
Fine Mist Water Sprayer
Graphite Paper
Pencil
Download of Lion Template
Bowl of Water
Paper Towels or a Rag
A Colorful Sunset Defines The Background
Using the template and graphite paper, transfer just the horizon line or draw it lightly in with a pencil.
Start with spraying a fine mist of water on your canvas which will help the paint flow more freely when blending colors for the background.
Using a flat paint brush (#10 or above works well) and blue acrylic paint, start at the top of the canvas and paint from side to side a bit then mix a little red on the brush. Do a few swipes back and forth, blending the colors together. Clean the paint brush off in the water and wipe dry on the rag or paper towels if it still has blue in it. Then add red and orange, blending and swiping across from side to side and finish by adding yellow down to the horizon line.
Clean the paint brush off in the water and wipe dry on the rag or paper towel. Add some purple or red to the blue. Don't mix it too much to make a solid color. Paint in the background mountains a purplish blue combination color. Don't worry about the foreground yet because we're going to do the lion first.
Painting A Lion In The Sunset
Make sure your painting is thoroughly dry and then using the graphite paper and the template you downloaded, transfer the lion to the canvas.
Squeeze out some brown and white acrylic paint on your palette. Mix it to make about 3 different shades of brown/tan. Dark brown, medium brown and tan.
Paint the lions body and some of his mane and face in tan with your #3 round brush.
Switch to a smaller brush preferably a #0 or smaller. Make strokes of dark brown and medium brown throughout his mane.
Make his nose dark brown. Refer to the picture to see how I have outlined his legs a bit with dark brown.
Paint the inside of his eyes white then let your painting dry before finishing the eyes, nose mouth and claws.
Mix a little bit of tan with yellow to make his eyeballs. Let that dry.
While that's drying, squeeze a bit of black acrylic paint on your palette. Referring to the picture outline his nose, mouth and facial area. Give him nostrils, outline the eye area and eyeballs and add pupils to the eyes.
Paint his claws with black paint. Fill in his mane with a little black but not too much. Mix some dark brown with a tiny bit of black and fill in more of his mane and paint his tail. Let it dry.
Look to see if some areas of the mane look to dark and paint a few strokes of medium and tan over it until it looks natural. Try not to overdo it. It doesn't need to be perfect. It's better if it's not perfect. It will look more natural.
The final step is to paint in the foreground. Using medium to dark brown mixture and your flat brush, paint it to where it looks like the lion is standing on top of it like in the picture.
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