Critical Investigation "Leones"

Animalistic art is the representation of animals in artistic elements such as painting and sculpture. It is common for domestic animals to be depicted in these, including horses. These can be seen in paintings from the vice-regal period. Magical creatures have also been represented throughout the history of art. These consist of an animal made up of parts of other animals or humans. Among the fantastic animals are the "Pegasus" who have the wings of a bird and the body of a horse, mermaids who are made up of the tail of a fish and the torso of a human, and dragons. In my project I will paint two lions laying one on top of the other. The main artists I was inspired by were Marie-Rosalie Bonheur, Franz Marc, Farid Rueda and Nick Sider. These artists painted animals during their careers. This influenced my creative process since I liked the visual communication that their work promotes. These works aim to show animals and express them in the most realistic way possible so they can help the viewer understand the animal, something that I want to achieve when doing my work.

Marie-Rosalie Bonheur is an important artist in art history as she was the most

Famous painter of the first three quarters of the 19th century specially because of the influence that her projects had on art as a whole.

She managed to be recognized as a serious artist at a time when this title was only recognized for men, while with women painting was defined as something they did solely for entertainment. The allowance of women painting helped broaden the expression of art as more people were able to explore different techniques and visually communicate their creativity and thoughts. Her works had an impact on me as she expresses her love for animals in most of them. Part of the reason I plan to paint lions is because of my love of animals.

Franz Marc Born in Munich was the son of Wilhelm Marc, a professional landscape artist. Franz took the same path as his father and graduated in 1900 from the art school in Munich.

He paints animals with colors that are not originally correspondent to them, such as yellow cows and blue horses. In 1911 he formed a group of painters who expressed strong emotions and feelings in their art through bright colors. He uses simple shapes with lines defined by colors darker than that of the animal, he has a lot of symmetry in all his paintings as well as he does not mix many colors. This causes them to be even more impressive and expressive of the feelings of the artist as well as the animal. This artist was important to my creative process as feelings are a large part of the composition of his works. I would like my work to express feelings in the same way as him.

Farid Rueda is a Mexican urban artist who specializes in the painting of murals.

His works are characterized mainly by using bright colors and shapes representing different animals.

His painting technique is called "kaleidoscope" since his works have the same effect as one. The animals he paints are originated in Mexico and most are in danger of extinction. His murals had an impact on my art and this specific painting as he interprets Mexican culture and animals in a very unique way. I liked this a lot since his works show a part of culture and go beyond colors and what is seen with the naked eye.

Nick Sider is a Canadian artist who paints pictures of hyper realistic people, bears, horses and especially big cats.

He did not go to any school so he only developed his ability to paint. This artist is my favorite among those that I researched for my painting and I would like to be able to paint like him. His paintings look like photographs because of how detailed they are, the backgrounds, the main focus and all the elements of his paintings in general. I really like his style as he manages to capture exactly what is happening in a painting as he paints everything with extreme accuracy and realism. This realism helps you to be able to capture what happens, the movement of the animal and you could even interpret the feelings of the animals. His technique is paint and he uses a very small brush to be able to paint each hair of the animal. This artist was important in my creative process as he helped me define what I would like to achieve in my works and showed me that achieving the kind of realism and expression that I want to create in animals is possible.

My goal and expectation of growth as the artist for this work is to be able to improve my ability to paint realistic animals and to be able to express depth within the animal itself and the contrast between the two lions, this will help me create a good visual balance. If my work has a good visual balance, it will be easier for me to create the movement in the lions' hair, just as my work will be easier to understand. It is essential that my work is easy to understand in order to communicate the feelings of lions as they do not have distinctive facial features like humans do. I will achieve this by improving my use of brushes and acrylic paints.

My critical research has helped me to be able to define what I will do in this artwork and my final objective. After having seen these artists as well as experimenting with different techniques in my sketches such as graphite, watercolors, acrylic and prism color pencils, I have been able to come to the conclusion that I will use acrylic paints and thin round and square brushes as a medium. I will use these specific brushes to create the effect of lion hair. My support will be a cloth canvas on a wooden base so that the paint can be absorbed properly and the texture is better.